Santa comes but once a year

I was going to work out how many shopping days there were left until Christmas groans it's swollen belly full of festering festive frippery down our collective chimneys, but I can't be bothered. Ah yes, it's only September and already our bearded protagonist has got himself a nasty dose of the bah-humbugs.

My local supermarket already has two aisles dedicated to the gods of too much chocolate and other assorted tinselly folderol. And I know this looks like it's turning into an annual rant, as predictable as the seasons*, but... Actually, I'll just leave that one there, because I'm guessing that by the time September 2009 comes round I will be equally incensed that we've not had Halloween yet, but you can already buy bloody mince bloody pies.

I mean, who wants to eat mince pies in September? Actually, let's be honest here: who wants to eat them at all. EVER? Because, let's face it, they're basically just vile little nuggets of yuck.

There is, however, an up-side to all this down: Jelly Tots. You can finally buy big tubes of Jelly Tots again. Mmm... You have to love Jelly Tots, otherwise people look at you strangely and throw things. And you deserve it too, you freak. How could you not love Jelly Tots? That's like saying, "Kittens are really ugly, aren't they?" and then sexually assaulting a nun.

So the point of this rambling meander is that I've already started to stockpile these lovely buttony nipples of chewy fruitiness (as opposed to the aforementioned vile little nuggets of yuck), squirrelling them away like a ... a ... well, a squirrel, I suppose. Only without all that twitchy nose nonsense. I mean, who are they trying to kid? Like they wouldn't rip your throat out if you fell asleep under their tree. Oh yeah, they're cute, but I wouldn't trust one in my trouser pocket, that's all I'm saying.

Plus I've given She Who Must Buy Her Husband Nice Christmas Presents** a subtle hint as to what I'd like for Christmas. It went like this,

Me: "Bloody Christmas stuff's in the shops again."
SWM: "You're not going to go off on one about Mince Pies again, are you?"
Me: "Well, it's not natural, is it?"
SWM: "Every sodding year..."
Me: "But they've got Jelly Tots in too! Hurrah!" Holds up tube of Jelly Tots as a visual aid. "See?"
SWM: "Urgh."
Me: "What?"
SWM: "Horrible jelly sweeties. How can you eat them?"
Me: "Because it wouldn't be Christmas without Jelly Tots. Anyway, they're only a pound. A pound a tube! How cool is that?"
SWM: "You're mad."
Me: "Go and buy them! Buy them for my Christmas! Buy them now!" Shakes tube for emphasis. "This is my subtle Christmas hint!" Shake, shake, shake... etc.

See, that's how sensible grown-up adults conduct themselves.

* Or at least, as predictable as the seasons used to be. Nowadays, the only thing you can predict about them with any degree of accuracy is that the weather will be uniformly crap, with outbreaks of poop and 'just fuck off you raining BASTARD!'
** Just because I don't want the shops to be groaning with Christmas tat in September, it doesn't mean I don't want to traipse downstairs on Christmas morning, to find the tree groaning with presents for ME! I'm grumpy, not daft.

A tube full of class

Having recently been to a seventies-themed dinner party, I have to wonder how the hell we all managed to survive into the eighties. And I'm not just talking about the horrific clothes that all seemed to come in a nasty shade of dysentery brown and septic orange ether - I'm talking about the food.

Everyone who turned up at the aforementioned historical re-enactment nosh-and-booze-up was required to bring along some authentic seventies food. Not from the actual seventies - that would be asking for food poisoning, there's only so long a packet of Vesta Curry will go past its sell-by-date after all, and nearly thirty years is probably pushing it - but everything had to be made from era-appropriate recipes.

She who must and I turned up bearing a tuna mousse, made in the traditional manner with Carnation evaporated milk, tinned tuna, and packet gelatine, all lovingly poured into a brass mould in the shape of a fish. Next up: strawberry milk jelly in a lumpy doughnut-ring-style Tupperware mould*. And last, but not least: Mexican mince, which is what passed for chilli back in the day (when beans were baked, not kidneyed).

Of these, the only thing thing that was even vaguely edible was the Mexican mince. The tuna mousse was like sucking on a fisherman's sock while he's still wearing it. And he's suffering from an infected, ingrowing toenail. And possibly some sort of fungal infection. The milk jelly split into a gritty layer of curdled white bits, and a wobbly layer of apologetic pink. But people could keep down the Mexican mince without going green and sprinting for the toilet.

Someone had gone to the trouble of buying a vintage Fanny Craddock** cookbook and lovingly crafted a traditional Boeuf Bourguignon, using some extremely good beef. But by the time Fanny got through with it, it might as well have been cavity wall insulation. How the hell did that woman become a mainstay of British culinary endeavour? She's a menace. Plus looked like a cross between Dame Barbara Cartland and a shaved Rottweiler. And her Boeuf Bourguignon tasted (and I use the following word in full knowledge of its inherent campness) ghastly.

But the superstar of the whole seventies food-fest was the person who squeezed Primula onto Ritz Crackers and topped them with a copule of prawns. Not big meaty king prawns, but those little pink commas you get in the freezer section of supermarkets. And they were great. So great in fact that She Who Must Be Spoiled With Exotic Comestible Treats and I bought a tube for ourselves the next week, and ate the whole thing in two days. Mmm, cheese you can squeeze...

I don't know why, but there's something inherently wrong about cheese that comes in a tube. And there's something equally wrong about cheese with bits of stuff added to it. But the chive-speckled Primula just works. It's savoury toothpaste for the soul.

The strange thing is, that all this horrible, claggy, vile food was the height of sophistication in 1970's Britain. Christ only knows why. In the aftermath of The Dinner Party That Time Forgot the Fanny Craddock cookbook was showered with vitriol, profanity, and finally lighter fluid. Then barbecued in full ceremonial fashion. Yes, it could have gone to a charity shop, but that would be a bit like leaving a cannister of smallpox lying about on the shelf, just waiting for someone to pick it up and ruin their life, reputation, and stomach lining.

* As you can probably tell, putting stuff in moulds was the height of sophistication in seventies Aberdeen. Oh yes, we knew how to live the wild life!
** The best Fanny Craddock quote has to come from her husband Johnnie, who was a bit of a dypso, and after she'd finished making doughnuts on live TV, turned to the camera and said to an eager nation, "And I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's." Which is a lot ruder in the UK than it is in the US. Even if that does sound like he's wishing everyone in America a dose of deep-fried arseholes.

Skills? I needs them...

My email inbox collects its fair share of useless garbage. Great deals on strange pills that will apparently engorge my manhood to the size of a minibus; naked photos of Gloria Hunniford; offers from friendly Nigerian bank and government officials to help smuggle large sums of money out of the country; warnings that my NatWest on-line bank account is about to expire... even though I don't actually save with them. Things like that. But recently I found, nestling amongst the manure, a pearl. Something that will actually help me. Something that's been missing in my life, entitled:

FW: Is your skills about to expired?

Yes! They is about to expired! How could you tell? Is it the way I'm sitting?

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

It must be - it comes with an exclamation mark! All the best ideas come with exclamation marks! Even a bad idea can be a good idea with enough of them!!! See?

We provide a concept that will allow anyone with sufficient work experience to obtain a fully verifiable University Degree.

Bachelors, Masters or even a Doctorate.

Wow - a concept that will allow anyone to get a verifiable University Degree? Even someone who titles emails 'Is your skills about to expired?' That's some University! Sign me up now for a Doctorate, that way I can ask ladies to take off their clothes, and if they complain, I can say, "Trust me, I'm a fully verifiable doctor!" With an exclamation mark at the end to make it seem like a good idea.

Now I have to confess that I'm not the most qualified of people. Last time I sat around a dinner table with friends it basically went: Person 1 - Degree, Person 2 - Degree, Person 3 - 4 Degrees and a Doctorate (show off), Me - bugger all. I do have a bronze certificate for swimming the 200 meters, but that doesn't really count in the world of academic Top Trumps.

But at least I'm not the least qualified person at Casa MacBride. Yes, She Who Must has a Degree in Scottish History, but Grendel never went to university, and doesn't even have a bronze certificate for swimming the 200 meters. Or any swimming certificate come to that. She's not very fond of water... But that wouldn't stop her taking a cycling proficiency test (or whatever wanky title the Government's changed it to nowadays), would it?

Mind you, she doesn't have a bike. And it's a bit difficult to reach the pedals when your legs are only nine inches long and covered with fur.

I'd always thought any chance of a degree had passed me by, like a transvestite on rollerblades, but I know of one writer who's doing a distance learning degree where your final dissertation is something like 30,000 words and can be from your next book. So it's not as if you've got that much extra writing to do. And if you go into it as a published author, you get to skip a lot of the coursework: like the drinking till you puke on Freshers' week, or having those long rambling conversations at three in the morning at a very boring party, where everyone's trying to come off as all intellectual on the off-chance someone will want to shag them.

Personally I'd like an honorary degree. That way the only work you have to do is turn up and be hit in the head with a mortar board. Of course, then you're only an honorary doctor, but that might still be enough to convince ladies to take their clothes off...