Getting Ready For Christmas

The first delivery of the morning contains a small fruit cake and three small Christmas puddings- all with NO ADDED SUGAR- because sugar is evil. 

Ailz starts buying Christmas presents on Boxing Day (I may exaggerate slightly) so that side of things is seen to, though we may still need to buy one or two things for the granddaughters. We have plenty of Christmas cards left over from last year (and the year before.) 

Meat has been ordered- or is in the freezer- I forget which. Ailz asked me if I wanted to eat nut-roast (reconstituted from gritty dust) and I said that while I don't actually hate nut roast I would prefer to have something nice- like cheese and onion pie.

We were wandering round a garden centre the other day and it knocked us a little giddy to see what people are prepared to pay for an artificial Christmas tree. Something comparable to the very old one we trot out year after year will set you back £200- and that's an entry level price.

Longhaired 19th Century Types

1. My hair is now shoulder length- and a little bit more- and if I didn't wash it regularly (which is a bore) I would look like one of Susanna Clarke's working-class magicians- Vinculus or Childermass. I am currently re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell- which is why the comparison occurs to me. It is such a good book!

2. Talking about long-haired 19th century types, I've never rated Oscar Wilde very highly as a writer or liked him much as a person but I've always found him interesting. I was thinking about this yesterday- wondering why I'll read anything about him that comes my way, though not (perish the thought) the man's own books- and came to the conclusion it's because he's such a riddle. G.K Chesterton, who disliked Wilde more than I do but couldn't stop talking about him, propounded what I think is the best answer to the riddle. Wilde, he said- in so many words- was a charlatan, a faker, a poseur- but above all else- and it was the truest thing about him- an Irish swashbuckler. It was in his nature to oppose, provoke, annoy, cut a dash, do dangerous things. I think that's as true as any simplification can ever be- and it's why I didn't buy Stephen Fry's version of him. Fry's Wilde was too passive- a man to whom things were done rather than a man who made things happen; he just wasn't piratical enough.