No. 56 Jeffman’s Christmas Address to the Nations

Those arriving here expecting a spot of Christmas cheer may be better off going here instead. For those choosing to stick around, read on:

“It’s Christmas time, and there’s no need to be afraid. At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade.”

Indeed so. Well, maybe if you’re a politician, a banker, or anybody else fortunate to operate under the sleazy banner of corrupt and bone idle rich – complete with obligatory easy-wipe conscience.

For the rest of us, well Christmas is just a slightly sparkly plaster – you know, the sort they stick on the bloodied knees of toddlers at Playschool, complete with minute depictions of whatever cartoon character is currently flavour of the month – administered in preparation for the wasteland of precariousness that inevitably lies ahead.

Take Woolworths for instance. Set to close its doors in the UK for the final time on January 5th 2009. The name has been trading for 130 years, which has led to the media’s ‘nostalgia’-tinged banter about how wonderful the pick ‘n’ mixes were, Saturday jobs for teenage girls, and shoplifting etc. But amidst all this dewy-eyed reminiscence there’s also the small matter of 27,000 suddenly out of a job.

That’s 27,000 human beings, with lives of their own, families to feed, and bloody great bills to pay. Not a statistic chanted ad nauseum by anodyne newsreaders every few minutes of the day, nor a great whopping figure whose only purpose is to bolster the steadily rising unemployment figures. Makes one so proud to be alive, right here, right now!

This is actually my third attempt at writing this. The other two I gave up on in despair, there being a distinct lack of anything remotely positive to focus on. These are frightening times and there’s no point trying to gloss over it with false festive cheer…

… Though we can but try. Here goes. There’s an episode of Doctor Who on Christmas Day (only an hour? has the credit crunch hit Gallifrey too?) and that’s about it.

Jeffman will emerge from his customary drink-induced nirvana just long enough to watch the aforementioned televisual treat before reattaching the brandy and beer drips to his forearms and forgetting it was ever on. Then he’ll do his best to erase the sheer crapness of the past twelve months from his mind in time for what forecasters reckon will be an even crapper year. A festive-wrapped parcel of used hypodermics delivered directly to your front door. 365 of the buggers, in fact.

If you worked for Woolworths then this forecasted sapling of shite is already bearing fruit. As it also is with the current collapse of the building industry, as well as manufacturing, which has been on its arse for years. And whilst this is allowed to go on the government bring in stricter measures to tackle benefit claimants. Measures that will inevitably hit those most in need through no fault of their own, instead of the ’scroungers’ they claim to be targeting; all in some half-hearted, middle-England courting bid to supposedly get the unemployed back working. I’d have thought that even from the ivory towers inhabited by the Whitehall brigade, it would be bleeding obvious that thanks to their cosying up to the corrupt banking fraternity there are no fucking jobs out there.

It’s so easy for a politician who has probably never, nor ever will, had to undergo the fortnightly degradation and suspicion of signing on whilst some jobsworth glares accusingly from across a desk; to come up with these ideas and in the process tar everyone with the same brush. Dole Scrounger!

Everything is crap. Britain has lost its way spectacularly. Each day is akin to undergoing waterboard torture with the unflushed gruel from a dosshouse bog. 2009 threatens to swallow us all in this tidal wave of crapness.

All you’ll see on Google Maps is the occasional head bobbing in a sea of effluence (as opposed to the perpetually promised affluence), gasping for a few gulps of air before another undercurrent of raw sewage drags them back beneath the surface.

Those fortunate enough to have built their houses on the hill, be it through fair means or foul (mostly foul), will be able to take potshots at these intermittent heads from their sanctuary, thus livening up an otherwise dull existence and giving them a reason to get out of bed in the morning. After all, aren’t the ones with the money, the same ones always telling us paupers it doesn’t bring happiness?

I look forward to meeting you in the dole queue next year.

But enough of that. I’m off to drink myself into a world of happiness, abandon and easy women, whilst I can still afford to. I shall return in the new year with exciting news – well, for me perhaps – of a new music journal, soon to be hitting the webstands (Yawn!). In the meantime, here are a few predictions for 2009:

The unemployed will be made to wear orange jumpsuits whenever they leave the dosshouse they’re living in, following the repossession of their homes. Failure to do so will result in the freezing of their benefits.

Smoking and drinking to be outlawed among the proles. Anybody found drunk in charge of a cigarette without a Waitrose receipt as proof of purchase will be publicly stoned at the football ground of their choice.

Compulsory seizure of all television sets. To be replaced with festive flagons of napalm to liquidise what little sense the brain still possesses, and rusty spoons with which to gouge out your eyes.

Job interviews to follow the X-Factor blueprint, including a compulsory song and dance routine, before an audience of baying loons. In the absence of TV sets, your humiliation will be broadcast directly into the minds of the great British public. Saturday night. 7.00PM. Ad infinitum.

The last pub in England will close its doors for the final time, prior to being converted into a block of duplex apartment/ Chinese/ Indian buffet restaurant-styled mosques.

The government will be replaced by a troop of shaved dwarves and nobody will notice, allowing the honorable members of Parliament to get on with the more important business of counting their money.

Christmas will be banned forever so as not to offend the terminally miserable. The same goes for dancing, smiling, laughing, and anything else that could be mistaken for enjoying yourself.

Merry Christmas and all that.

Jeffman will be back to his usual cheery self in 2009. In the meantime he has generously given his writing team Christmas Day morning off, as well as allowed them an extra lump of coal to suck on during the cold winter months.

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