Via The Englishman Melanie McDonagh writes in the Times about shopping on Christmas Day (she doesn’t approve):
The internet is at any time of the year a way of not engaging with the people under our noses. To do it at Christmas is a kind of sacrilege.
And if I hear anyone say that it’s a matter of individual choice, that no one is forcing anyone to shop online, I’ll push their heads into a bowl of punch and hold it down for a very long time. If half the world is doing its online bargain chasing when they might be quarrelling with the in-laws, getting drunk, overcooking the turkey or stabbing themselves with scissors in an effort to open packaging, it has an effect on everyone.
But it is a matter of individual choice. Those of us who do not celebrate Christmas are under no obligation to go along with the rest of you and I do not regard it as sacrilege. What I do regard as sacrilege is a self-righteous journalist telling me what I should or should not do. Christmas is just a quasi-Christian festival that has long since become hijacked by the commercial world, bearing no resemblance to its pagan origins. The cosy Dickensian ideal (if it ever existed) is no more and hasn’t been for as long as I can remember. If you want to stay in and celebrate it in your own way, all well and good. If I don’t want to join in, then that’s my business – a matter of personal, individual choice and if I decide to do a little online shopping, then it harms no one and it is, indeed, a matter of individual choice. I am not forcing Melanie McDonagh to do likewise; she can switch off her computer after all.
What is it about politicians, and now hectoring, lecturing journalists, who think that their ideas and beliefs should be forced upon the rest of us?
Now that I’ve arrived in France, a new greenhouse is an early priority – there are cacti everywhere that need a permanent home and we need somewhere to bring the spring seeds on for the summer crop. I was planning to go onto the Internet and buy one this week – I’ve found a site that delivers for free – I’ll wait until the 25th, I think, and buy it then.
What we urgently need is a Mind Your Own Business Party. If more people started doing that, instead of running around like headless chickens blaming everyone else for what’s going wrong, or hectoring and lecturing people about matters which are nothing to do with them, we might begin to see the glimmerings of a recovery.
Unfortunately, though, the country is increasingly being “run” by people who have no experience of an honest day’s practical work, but have gone straight into politics, administration, journalism, and so forth straight from college with crap degrees in rubbish subjects such as “business administration” and “social studies”. Most of them are self-important pompous twits who would be incapable of getting down on their hands and knees and cleaning out a dirty lavatory.
I’d call myself Christian but I don’t celebrate the hyped up shopfest that masquerades as Christmas. Sure – you do as you wish on that day.
Have a relaxing few days over this Christmas, Longrider.
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Thanks. I intend to – in between my on-line shopping and DIY activities… 😉
Glad to see you back.