Presence

I went Christmas shopping yesterday, and it was Hell on Earth.

In the last few festive shopping days, the city centre becomes a totalitarian nightmare. Everyone must buy certain things, wear certain colours, listen to certain music. Santa Claus stares at you from every shop-front and tacky display box like a jolly Stalin.

There's a real sense of desperation about the whole thing. I went into Argos, and stood next to an old woman leafing through the toy section, obviously looking for a gift for a young relative. She might as well have been reading hieroglyphics. It's all exclamation marks and pink plastic. She'd have been better off just giving her relative money in a card (it would be preferable for both parties), but a sense of Xmas propriety requires something that can be boxed and wrapped.

I always go through the same shopping experience. I see some things that might be OK gifts. Then I wonder round for hours looking for something better, by the end of which I'm so tired and hot, and have deep carrier-bag impressions carved into my hands like a tacky Ozymandias. Look at my fingers, ye mighty, and despair.

I never have any better ideas, so I hurry to get the things I thought of to begin with, except some of them are gone and some aren't as good as I thought they were. But I don't care at that point. I just start throwing money around and get out of there as soon as possible.

The whole thing is like a complicated game and no-one knows the rules. And we have to play. We have an idea of Christmas - a proper Christmas. But we don't quite know how to get there, so we just cling on to familiar things - chocolate, tinsel, fancy soaps. I like seeing men buying things for their wives and girlfriends. They have no idea what to do. If Stalin Claus was any kind of dictator, he'd give us budgets and a limited amount of options.

But he enjoys the chaos, I suppose.

So, as the painfully shallow music swells, and the queues get longer, and my legs get more tired, I begin to consider converting to Judaism. I think I'd miss the pork, though.

Of course the truth of the matter is: a lot of people really like Christmas shopping. I'm just a whiner. I don't like any kind of shopping. In fact, the good thing about Christmas is that we get all this stressful stuff done early, so that we can spend the period in relative peace. At least that's the idea.

But I'm going to try to not do this next year. Online shopping all the way! (Of course I said that last year, and it didn't really pan out)

I wouldn't mind people having slightly more unique Christmases, though. I like the tradition of the thing - and the continuity (especially for children). But I wouldn't mind leading a rebellion against Stalin Claus and deciding that I'm going to give vegetables as gifts, wear black spandex and instead of carols I'd just sing the entire back catalogue of En Vogue.

Just to mix things up a little, you know?

***

That was a pretty banal bit of observation, wasn't it? I mean it wasn't exactly groundbreaking.

I don't need everything I write to be revolutionary. But, the annoyance of Christmas shopping? Come on...

The trouble is, when you're a... I don't want to say 'genius', but... a genius, you have to hold yourself up to higher standards. It's a rod I've made for my own back, I suppose.

But it happens to all gifted people. If Da Vinci was a great juggler for example, it wouldn't be that impressive given all the other things he did. "Well, Leonardo," they'd say. "That's some mighty fine club-work, but it's hardly the Last Supper, is it?"

I'm not saying I'm Da Vinci.

I'm just A LOT like him.

It might be the case that the 19/12/08 entry on Christmas shopping is my equivalent of Da Vinci's juggling, compared to the Mona Lisa that is Mug World.

It's the Frog Chorus to my earlier Hey Jude. It's the Cassandra's Dream to my earlier Annie Hall. It's the child rape to my earlier I'm the Leader of the Gang (I am).

I have a feeling Mug World may be an albatross around my neck for years to come.

"It's good," they'll say. "But it's not a patch on the adventures of Jack Thunderpunch and Candy Tuft".

And they'd be right. I should have started off slowly, in retrospect. But what's done is done.

If, when I'm old and grey, the only thing people remember about me is Mug World, I'm ok with that. It's better to burn out than fade away.

In any event, the initial concept for Mug World II: Under the Rim, is percolating in my brain as we speak. And the 19/12/08 entry on Christmas shopping will be forgotten like Da Vinci's treatise on how men always leave the toilet seat up.