November

The 12 Posts of Xmas (#1): ‘The Christmas you get you deserve…’

‘The 12 Posts of Xmas’ are a series of posts that will be published between 1 December and 25 December 2008. From tales of woe through humour to mere rants, each post is based around a classic Christmas song and is accompanied by a festive images of times gone by…!!!

I was a child (of sorts) in the 1970s, the time when most of the classic Christmas pop songs were written and begun their giddy ascent into British folklore (Slade, Wizzard, Mud et al). One song that my family never liked – possibly because it was quite unlike most other Christmas songs – was Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas”. Because of this, I too grew up disliking the song, feeling that it wasn’t a real Christmas song, whatever that meant.

This stayed with me for many years.

Part of my own family’s tradition every Christmas is to listen to all the Christmas classics whilst driving in the car. Sadly, we normally start this about mid-November and with each new technological advance, so the format of the listening experience changes: C90, CD and at the moment, I-Pod playlist. Alongside the old classics – Slade, Wizzard, Mud et al – we now have The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl, The Darkness (sorry), Bo Selecta (even sorrier) and The Killers. Yet unlike my family in the 1970s, nowadays Greg Lake’s song is included.

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This Week I’ve…(24th November 2008)

This week I’ve…

…watched ‘Borat the Movie’ on the DVD including the ‘censored’ scenes

…listened to Jack White & Alicia Keys’ “Another Way to Die” (the theme tune from the latest James Bond film, ‘Quantum of Solace’)

…read Waterhouse Consulting Group’s ‘independent’ evaluation of Birmingham City Council’s PVE Pathfinder programme (Note to Readers: click here to download)

…laughed about so many things that I can’t remember any of them (Note to Self: write down the things you laugh at…)

…despaired at watching Harry play football in ridiculous amounts of rain and hail in Wolverhampton – nice

…had hope about Labour returning to its Socialist roots and taxing the rich…!!!

…been completely random about the blue-bottle that quite inadvertently divebombed into my coffee in Starbucks, Selfridges Birmingham (Note to anyone who may be remotely interested: Aren’t blue-bottles supposed to have all died by the end of November…???)

Interested in what I’ve been doing previously…??? Then click here…

Being British and Being Defiant: the Ongoing Nonsense of British Day

This month’s ‘chunk’ of Birmingham Post Chris Allen-lite for all to savour and enjoy…

Earlier this year, I wrote about how overwhelmingly lacklustre and uninspired this year’s St George’s Day celebrations were (click here to view). Especially the potential horror of the proposed British Day. Suggesting that this might amount to little more than standing in orderly queues followed by binge drinking all night, I rhetorically asked whether anyone had any better suggestions.

How surprised was I when the Minister for the West Midlands – Liam Byrne – responded by producing a pamphlet containing 27 suggestions no less. Let’s be honest, he wasn’t responding to me. It was for Gordon Brown, but who knows whether he’ll be around long enough to read it. As for ‘better suggestions’ though…?

‘A national event, celebrated in local areas’ – stating the obvious maybe?

“A speech by the Queen” – sorry, done on Christmas Day.

“A remembrance day celebrating the bravery of veterans” – already in the calendar for November.

“Holding street parties and neighbourhood get-togethers” – didn’t work for the Golden Jubilee, doubt it will for British Day.

“A carnival similar to the Notting Hill Carnival…concerts like Live Aid…Children in Need” – am I missing the point or haven’t these already been done?

And of course, we mustn’t forget the obligatory Morris dancing, drinking and playing football.

What seems to be apparent is that whenever politicians begin to talk about British Day there is, if you listen carefully enough, the sound of the barrel being scraped in the background. I’ll reiterate that I don’t have any issue with celebrating Britishness or indeed being proud of it, I am so myself. But having politicians tell me what to do and when to do it really does make me want to offer them a traditional British gesture: the good old fashioned ‘V-sign’.

Why? Well let me tell you.

No-one knows the true origins of the V-sign but the first photographic evidence dates from 1901. Here workers outside the Parkgate ironworks in Rotherham were captured being particularly defiant and unhappy with one young man aggressively making the gesture to the camera. Twelve years later and a photograph of a football crowd captures a fan making the sign to the away end. Again, the gesture is used in an overtly defiant way. And what many don’t realise is that when Winston Churchill began making his ‘Victory’ V-sign, he had to be told that it was rude to do it in the way he originally chose. Eventually he turned his palm to face outwards to save embarrassment. But even so, the gesture remained undeniably defiant.

The ‘V-sign’ then is without doubt the most British of gestures. From John Prescott to Liam Gallagher, Wayne Rooney to Johnny Rotten, the list goes on – and will continue to do so well into the future. More importantly though, the gesture is not only British but also extremely defiant: defiant of things we don’t like, don’t agree with, or don’t want.

And so here’s my defiance. My Britishness is personal, one that doesn’t define who I am, where my loyalties lie, or how I relate to society. In fact it only becomes problematical when someone else tries to tell me who I am, denying my individuality by recourse to stereotype. The right of all to be who they want to be, say what they want to say, go where they want to go and believe what they want to believe are sacrosanct in our democracy constrained only by the bounds of British law and a respect for others around me. This then is what being British is about and this will – hopefully – out stay any attempt to tell us otherwise on British Day.

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.