Christmas morning arrived and my other half peeked out from behind the bedroom curtains, fervently hoping to be greeted by a picture book scene. A crisp white blanket covering the surrounding countryside, save for the village church spire. Young whipper snappers skating on the frozen duck pond.
Sadly it was not to be.
Instead the same patch of threadbare grass, adorned with a damp settee. The potholed road (Claims Direct take note). The neighbour's house with the boarded up living room window, results of last week's domestic.
Shitsville in the year of our Lord 2008.
I pretended to be asleep while she mused, "It'd be nice to live on a decent estate, so I could look out and see a father teaching his son to ride a bike."
"Well you still get that here, only it's usually a stripped down Honda 90, outstanding stolen, with three of their mates on the back."
Christmas isn't what it used to be. I've wrote at length on this blog about the state of British TV, but at no other time is it more acutely highlighted than in the season of goodwill.
If you want evidence of the absolute dearth of imagination in our television executives, then look no further than the Christmas schedules. It says a lot when a large proportion of the BBC's output for the festive period is at least thirty years old.
That said I'd much rather sit through an old episode of Porridge, Dad's Army or the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special than waste any more of my life watching the latest "celebrity" tripe.
This year I splashed out on Frankie Boyle's live stand up DVD. He comes up with an interesting variation for the next series of Big Brother. When the housemates get voted off, instead of the usual media scrum outside, why not have them go out to complete silence, followed a short while later by the sound of a single gun shot. Just when they're all thinking it's some kind of psychological game, we could dump the body from a helicopter into the BB garden. Might be worth a letter to Endermol Frankie.
Yet in the midst of all the cynicism and disillusionment with the "season of goodwill", this year I think I witnessed a genuine miracle.
Picture the scene, a high speed road traffic collision. A vehicle having left the road, a dead cert for a fatal you'd think. Not so, out from the twisted and contorted wreckage staggers a male, mercifully spared from any significant injury. I join him in the back of an ambulance where, due to the fact that he stinks of ale decide to do a breath test. It's at this time that said male spontaneously loses the ability to speak English, eventhough he's been conversing perfectly well prior to this. Fast forward thirty minutes and having completed the hospital drink drive procedure and failed to get any response from him, I decide to bugger off for a coffee, but not before telling him his wallet's in his coat pocket, to which he answers, "Cheers mate, thanks for your help".
At this time I felt genuinely touched by the hand of God and a warm glow entered the A and E cubicle. My brother struck dumb had regained the gift of speech. This was truly a miracle and I felt at one with my fellow man. Fortunately by the time I'd had my brew, it had passed and I was back to normal.
Bah Humbug...