28/12/07 On the road

Well, if John Motson was doing the commentary on my Christmas Day events , he'd inform you that this was only my second Christmas outside Scotland ; the other being in Peru in 1997.
I was curious to see how this event was celebrated in a different country, so it was with with great anticipation that I headed down the M6 towards Manchester.
I couldn't believe how quiet the roads were...it was the least stress I've ever experienced on a drive down south. If only it was always like this.
My brother has just bought a new house there and he's kindly volunteered to do the Christmas honours.
As in Scotland, people celebrate Christmas down here by (usually) eating a big turkey, exchanging gifts and drinking excessively.
As I drove through Manchester, I saw a man in the street in his underpants holding a bottle of beer and shouting,
"Is THIS what you fucking WANT???"
before being sick, then going trudging back into his house. I assume this is some kind of traditional Christmas role-playing, although I'm not 100% clear on what is being depicted here.
Perhaps the man was representing a character from a Charles Dickens book?
Anyway, Christmas Day was great.
The only bum note was the cancellation of the Xmas Pudding.
I was poised with a ladle and a bottle of brandy, however, a mini-oven was mistaken for a microwave oven, and the upshot was that rather than taking 10 minutes to cook, the pudding cooking time was estimated at 3 hours.
After careful consideration a decision was made to cancel the pudding.
I poured brandy over ice cream and set it on fire, but it wasn't the same really.
I watched some television after that.
I have to say that I was shocked and stunned to find that "To The Manor Born" wasn't very good.
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it was 60 minutes of damnable ghastliness.
The BBC executives who commissioned this disaster should be kicked to death by a gang of clog-wearing Television Commissioning Editors.
Any humour in the original series was derived from the will-they-won't-they aspect with regard to their future involvement in some "horizontal folk dancing".
You take that aspect away and you are left with a steaming great turd.
The Catherine Tate show was a bit ropey as well but the first sketch with Kathy Burke was utterly brilliant.
Coronation Street made me cackle with laughter as well.
Kevin and Sally had just found out that their ridiculously vampy daughter had been having an affair with her teacher ; Kevin had kicked the shit out of him in the street, then they'd retreated back into their house.
The stilted dialogue and acting in the scene back in the house was very funny.
Rather than shouting and ranting at the tops of their voices, they calmly discussed this calamity as if they were reading the news off an autocue.
There are more searing, emotional arguments in the Park family when someone has gone to the second row of chocolates before the top row has finished (unforgiveable in my book)

This is a bit of a curiosity
It's a comedy short that many countries in Europe always show at Christmas.
The weird thing is that it is a British production but is completely unknown here.
It has its moments but is a bit slow moving.

Now, this is what I call a trailer!
This was made in the days when trailers would contain ALL the best bits of the film, and you'd often go to see a shite film then mull over how great the trailer made it look.