Big Department Stores Leave Santa Out in the Cold

Livingstone backs outraged Elven Unions

Ding dong, ding dong. Twinkle twinkle. Hallelujah. Yep, the trick-or-treaters are safely tucked up in bed – it’s time for Christmas alright. You’ve heard it all before – rampant commercialism hijacks the spirit of Christmas in search of filthy lucre, yadayadayada…..

When it comes to the festive lights going up a bit early and the shops opening longer I don’t really give two hoots. In fact, anything’s good if it stops me having to burrow my way through the crowds of shoppers that invade in the run up to December 25th.
If you spend more money, it’s up to you, and Christmas is about giving anyway. As regards all the associated glutinous eating and drinking, it’s only natural. Lest we forget that we’re preserving the memory of an ancient pagan mid-winter festival. Wahey! Bring on the whole roast goats and barrels of mead.

But sadly it’s the spirit of Scrooge that seems to be creeping up on London. Not Scrooge in the form of a cantankerous, penny-pinching workaholic who only ruins Bob Cratchit’s Christmas but Scrooge as a faceless boardroom in the sky arbitrarily changing Christmas for all of us.

Wandering down Regent Street this year you can’t help but notice the gang of cartoon rats peering out from among the twinkling lights. The illuminations have been sponsored by animated flicks for the past couple of years now; they got away with it last year as ‘Ice Age 2’ was tenuously seasonal and the year before ‘The Incredibles’ was just dead good. But ‘Flushed Away’ – a film about a posh rat who gets flushed down a toilet and ends up in London’s sewers – is in no way Christmassy. It just looks cheap and tacky.

But it hasn’t stopped at more insidious advertising. I was shocked to discover Santa’s Grotto has been removed from its traditional position inside the large department stores. Debenhams, John Lewis and, even the world’s most famous toy shop, Hamleys, have all decided the man in red and white doesn’t merit his own home. They haven’t thrown him out into the cold, or put him in a cramped B and B – he’ll just be wandering about the store instead. My childhood trips to visit the man himself in his natural habitat surrounded by elves were absolutely magical. It pains me to hear that the next generation won’t be afforded this right of passage.

So why have they got rid of them? Gangs of ASBOs mugging their contemporaries in dark corners of the grotto? News that a paedophile ring had infiltrated the Santa’s Guild? Nothing so scandalous or tabloid-worthy; it just wasn’t an economical use of space.

The grottos might be gone but there are still thousands of rosy cheeked kids out there gagging to sit on Santa’s knee. All I need is a shop unit just off Oxford Street, some elf outfits, some cheap pressies and a man with a large wooden sign and Sadie Nelson will be bagging her wedge of the Yuletide bounty. Ten pounds a go anyone? The spirit of capital….I mean Christmas, is still alive!

Hush on the Bus

The Mayor of London has made moves towards implementing a complete ban on anyone playing music from a mobile system while travelling on London buses. Part of a crackdown on anti-social behaviour and crime, the Mayor’s proposed policy has met with opposition from the city’s 4,500 bus drivers, who have refused to enforce the clampdown.

Fair Cop-y, Guv!

A three-day exhibition featuring London’s raft of forged artworks went on display at the V and A museum this month. Art experts were invited by the Metropolitan police to view the haul, which is said to represent just some of the many fakes that are being unknowingly sold by auction houses and dealers throughout the capital.

Tube's Token Gesture

Colourful tokens marking acts of kindness are being awarded to commuters on the capital’s underground network. The brainchild of marketing manager, Liz Akers, the campaign aims to cheer up the capital’s commuters and get them communicating with each other. Good luck!

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