Rage Against the Machine and then, if you're still pipped, tweak the nose of Rudolf
What do you get the woman who has everything? Would a chlamydia Christmas card be out of the question?
Sunderland health workers are sending out the cards in the run up to Christmas urging people to take a sex disease test. A free card and free sex disease test … what a bargain.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the need to link Christmas with sex disease, but health workers at Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust have no such qualms. They posed for a Sunderland Echo photograph in Santa hats and tinsel.
All they want for Christmas is a urine sample. They're taking the … well, they are quite literally extracting the urine. They say they will test the water, so to speak, and then text the results back at a later date. What will the text say? "Seasons greetings … you've got chlamydia."
My wife has issued me with a 10 limit on how much I can spend on her this Christmas.
It sounds like a winner, but with such a small pot of cash the choice of present now involves thought. And "thought" is not my strong suit.
Perhaps it's a man thing. We've not been getting a good press lately. I was struck by the comments in an Echo vox pop last Saturday on the subject of men.
Ann Mason, 57, Southwick, has some enlightening words. "They're big, hairy, useless things," she said.
Hey, less of the hairy please.
Fortunately the article was balanced by the opinion of others. Sheila George, 71, said: "They're good for nothing and they don't know how to dress." While Brenda Hope, 63, said: "They always just slob about."
There's no comeback to such a forensic dismantling of the male psyche, but it seems to me that Christmas spirit is in short supply.
I feel there's a knee jerk humbug reaction to every bit of good news in the run up to Christmas.
It's not just the chlamydia lot either.
Experts have even been having a pop at Santa.
Dr Nathan Grills, from Monash University in Australia, said Santa promotes obesity, drink-driving, speeding and a general unhealthy lifestyle.
Writing in the British Medical Journal this week he added: "Despite the risks of high speed air travel Santa is never depicted wearing a seatbelt or a helmet."
Give the guy a break. How soon before we add breaking and entering onto his list of offences? Maybe Sunderland TPCT have him in the frame for the chlamydia problem.
And could anyone have a bad word for X Factor winner Joe McElderry? The little darling has a fairytale rise to stardom which will surely be capped with a Christmas number one. He would be the ideal pop fairy for the top of the music Christmas tree. (Metaphorically speaking of course. Joe revealed this week that he is straight and has not had sex, nor is he planning on having sex in the near future. Maybe he's thinking of getting married).
Yet there are people prepared to spoil this Christmas party by downloading an f-word laden rock song by a band they barely know as part of an Internet campaign just to spite him.
Rage Against the Machine's little known 1992 record Killing in the Name is ahead of Joe in the race to be number one because so many people are downloading the song at 29p a throw.
I mentioned it to my wife, who replied: "Good."
Charming! I hope these mean spirits start to lift over the next few days or it's going to be a right miserable Christmas.
Still, at least my 10 Christmas dilemma has been solved. Thirty four downloads of Rage Against the Machine and a chlamydia Christmas card. Can't wait to see her face …
(First published, Echo, December 18, 2009)
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Friday 10 February 2012
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