Seasonal Musings

Are you feeling festive yet?  I'm certainly not.  I haven't had time.  Work, in particular, continues to eat up not just the time it pays me for, but my own time as well.  I haven't even had time to put up my Christmas trees (for which I've actually bought new lights this year), which constitute my seasonal decorations.  Elsewhere, though, the external Christmas lights are currently in full swing around Crapchester.  In fact, yesterday I saw a type of decoration I'd never seen before.  It seemed to be some kind of projection onto a blind or curtain of a window - it featured a moving, lifelike, image of  Father Christmas.  It was quite impressive, as decorations go.  The external light type which seems to be on the increase this year are those devices which projects lights onto the outside of your house.  Clearly, they must have been on sale somewhere.

Anyway, I finally managed to find some time to do some Christmas shopping this evening.  Much later than I would have liked but, like I said, I just haven't had the time.  The only bit I've previously been able to do is ordering my great nieces' presents via US Amazon (they are currently living in the States).  Yeah, I know that Amazon is an evil multi national corporate bastard that treats its staff abominably and doesn'y pay its taxes, but Hell, sometimes it is just easier and more convenient to use to get stuff to people overseas.  (Besides, DHL gave me a ludicrous ball park quote when I explored the possibility of buying their presents here and shipping them to the US.  Not that they are exploiting the Christmas period in indulge in some outrageous profiteering, obviously).

Not even the Christmas TV commercials are getting me in the spirit, they're so irritating.  Especially the Sainsburys' ones.  The one with the two twats playing ukuleles I find especially offensive.  Don't ask me why, it just does.  As for the BBC's latest set of Christmas idents - bland is probably too kind a description for them.  They don't even feel particularly festive.  They are probably worse than last year's, but they were so dire that I've completely forgotten what they were.  What they really need is some kind of  festive themed James Bond title sequence style idents, in the manner of Maurice Binder. (Preferably from his late Roger Moore period, when they simply consisted of lots of naked women in silhouette gyrating in front of psychedelic backgrounds, with nothing at all to do with the plot of the film). Either that or Danny Dyer dressed as an elf, eating a mince pie and saying 'Merry fucking Christmas.  You slags'.

But getting back to work's apparently insatiable appetite for my time, lately I've been looking at the figures with regard to reducing my hours.  So far, a three day working week is looking very feasible.  Particularly with the mortgage now paid off.  I'll make a decision on it all in the New Year.  The choice, though, is straightforward: I can carry on as before, banking the money I would have been paying out for the mortgage, or I could exchange some of that for more time to myself.  Right now, I think I'd rather have the time than the money.  Besides, reducing my hours and firmly ring fencing two days as entirely mine seems to be the only way of protecting myself from my employer's apparent determination to encroach on my time more and more.