Stop Fingering that Festive Piano...

We seem to mark Christmas via TV commercials these days.  At one time they simply used to herald the approach of the festive season - you could measure how close we were getting to it by the type and frequency of the ads.  It's the only time of year that you'll see those commercials for various perfumes.  You know the ones I mean - they're all somewhat surreal, usually presenting us with a brief black and white clip of people playing on a beach with the sound of the sea and children's laughter in the background as a voice whispers 'Eternity'.  Equally baffling is that one with the guy at a press conference telling everyone 'I'm not going to be the person I'm expected to be anymore'.  What the fuck is all that about?  Then there are the products which don't seem to be advertised on TV at any time other than Christmas. Disaronno, for instance.  In fact, I don't ever recall seeing it on shop shelves at any other time.  I didn't even know what it was, the first time I saw a commercial for it, other than that it was some kind of alcoholic beverage that groups of cool-looking people drank in cool-looking bars over the Christmas period.  (I know now that it is an Italian liqueur).

But we seem to have reached the stage now that we look to TV adverts to set the entire tone of Christmas.  Some of them seem to be regarded as annual events, on a par with the festive season itself: everyone waits with bated breath for, say, the Marks and Spencer Xmas ad, as if fearing that if it is crap, then so will Christmas itself.  The trendsetter for the past few years has been the bloody John Lewis Christmas commercial, always full of saccharine sentiment, tugging at our heartstrings, whether its romantic snowmen, that sodding bear and the hare or this year's lovelorn penguin.  It's as if people need to see these things in order to know how they should feel about the season.  (At least last year's John Lewis ad had Lily Allen singing on it - the first few times you could always hold out the hope that she was going to swear, or that her dad would turn up and eff and blind whilst denouncing the evils of the BNP).  This year, the ad which, for no reason particular, has irritated me the most is that bloody Aldi one.  You know, the one which tracks through various groups' Christmas dinners and culminates in Jools Holland playing the piano.  "Stop fingering that fucking piano", I've taken to shouting at the TV every time we get to that bit.  Sadly, I can't quite say it with the same degree of manic menace Gary Hope does in Big Zapper, when he shouts it at Penny Irving.  But I suspect that I'm going to get plenty of practice as we approach Christmas...