TOP 100 NEWSPAPER SITES
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| Mincing pieties | Jon Canter Scrooge had a point. The season of goodwill is riddled with hypocrisy and chilly calculationI've never met Martin and only got his email because he was replying to a mutual friend's round-robin. Yet immediately I felt a kinship with him. Martin wished everyone a merry Christmas, then added: "No cards this year to save the planet."Martin, I take my (recycled paper) hat off to you. I'm not sending Christmas cards this year either. My motive, admittedly, is different from yours: no cards this year to save the money. But the planet won't care that my motive is grubbier. The poor thing just wants to be saved. As it happens, Martin's high ground was a tad lowered when he went on to tell us that he and his family were off to India. That, though, is the problem with publicly declaring your compassion for the planet – some cynic will always scoff. How do I know that Martin and his family aren't going to India by bike?I blame Christmas for Martin's piety. The public declaration of virtue is what Christmas is all about. 'Tis the season to advertise your compassion, generosity, selflessnesss and loyalty to family and planet (never forgetting that the planet is not just for Christmas). Motives, therefore, are bound to be impure. This is advertising we're talking about.The sending of cards is a typical Christmas activity, advertising warmth while concealing chilly calculation. Oh yes, there's a core of loved ones to whom you happily send cards, even though you saw them 10 minutes ago, so your postal greeting is somewhat redundant. Beyond them is a muddy hinterland of work colleagues, your ex-dentist, cousins of cousins, and that nice couple who stayed in the same hotel as you on your 1999 city break to Prague. Then there are the friends you're not sure are still friends, because you never see them. Are they worth yet another Christmas stamp? Wait and see if they send you a card before sending them one. They'll probably do the same. There you'll be, outside your front doors, clutching each other's cards, both refusing to walk them to the postbox till you're sure of a return on your investment. It's a kind of Bethlehem stand-off.I admit it. This is mean-spirited thinking, worthy of Scrooge. But the old boy had a point. There's something about Christmas that makes bah!-humbuggers of us all. We know that hypocrisy's always lurking. I never see you then I send you a card saying: "Thinking of you at Christmas." Shouldn't I write its more truthful corollary: "Not thinking of you any other time but Christmas"?The focus for the greatest hypocrisy is that cursed Christmas lunch. How many people sit down to that pig-out with the people they'd like to pig out with? The Christmas spirit militates against it. Feuds must be suspended. Fights must cease. With Martin-like highmindedness, we must set out to save the family. For one day only, our families must suspend their natural state – which is, of course, war. Happy Xmas (War Is Over), as John Lennon sang, on a mawkish mince-pie-in-the-sky hit produced by that well-known elf of peace, Phil Spector.So we invite not just our nearest and dearest, but our furthest and most unpopular. There's always someone round that table who doesn't want to be there, but knows you felt obliged to invite them. They didn't want to come; you didn't want to invite them. Oh, how they wish they could have stayed at home. Oh, how you agree. But the high-minded spirit of Christmas triumphed. You couldn't not see each other, even though that would have made for a genuinely happy Christmas.God save the Queen, though. She surely understands. Seventy-five per cent of her children have been divorced. There must have been many a royal family Christmas when the table groaned with people unhappy to be there, longing for the moment when, like us, they could slump silently in front of the telly and watch Her speech.ChristmasJon Canterguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Mortar attack on MPs in Somalia At least eight people die after mortars are fired at Somali MPs holding their first meeting in Mogadishu since August. news.bbc.co.uk |
Iraq hostages: reconstruction of a kidnap British IT consultant Peter Moore was sent to Iraq as part of a bid to cut down corruption in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion. Instead, he found himself kidnapped and held for more than two years. The following is a reconstruction of events: telegraph.co.uk |
Minister urges Britons to 'do their neighbourly bit' in cold snap Lord Adonis has called on Britons to "do their neighbourly bit" by clearing pavements despite warnings from health and safety experts that householders could be sued for doing so. telegraph.co.uk |
Auschwitz entrance sign returned The infamous Arbeit Macht Frei sign from the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland is returned a month after it was stolen. news.bbc.co.uk |