Its Christmas - sort of...

As you get older things which you never understood become clear and things which were once second nature slowly but surely become unfathomable.

Nobody tells you this...I am now, clearly, but normally its kept hushed up for some reason.

Example; The Video / DVD recorder, when I were a lad, I was constantly used as an 'on call' recording engineer by my parents, there I would be faffing around with some marbles and barbie dolls, when I would be summoned to the front room (or lounge / drawing room if you please) to deliver technical 'know-how' to my otherwise competent parents. How do we record? Where is the recording? It just flashes? etc etc...I had, it must be stressed no formal training in the wonders of modern Japanese hi-techery. Somehow my growing mind seemed to understand the thought process used by Mr Toshiba as he came up with ever more complex programming systems.

To be honest, I thought this was a 'life skill', it remained with me throughout my twenties and then suddenly, BOOM! I have not a clue...I have to agonise for hours with instructions and remotes, trawl the Internet forums searching in vain for a similar problem that some youth has glibly resolved..sadly for me as well, my kids are not yet in the zone of technical whizzery so the DVD recorder sits idly under the telly mocking my middle aged incompetence.

I have I should say, discovered an antidote to this particular electronic challenge, and that it the Personal Video Recorder - the PVR (I have a TOPFIELD and its called the black panther!). Folks, if you do not have one of these gadgets - get one, it makes recording shows no more difficult than putting on shoes....and this is important, because once you get to the age when putting on shoes is a problem you will of course struggle with the PVR (as my Nan God bless her, would testify on this blog if computers did not scare the living bejesus out of her).

So a good example of knowledge deserting us as we get older, but we gain stuff too!

As a young child the thought, the very idea that it was even remotely possible for Christmas to start too early was beyond joke. How can Christmas, come to early? Its clearly the best time of the year -why wait. Older folk were constantly moaning on and on about decorations being up too early and carols on the radio being inappropriate -Losers! Get a life! Enjoy it you fools for tomorrow it will be just a memory, like smoke!

Those thoughts have gone!

Is it me, but has Christmas come too early this year? If you start before December and finish after January then that's a whole 1/12th of the year in Christmas mode! Surely it loses some of its meaning and grace when you have to listen to Slade for a full 840hours! Just how much good cheer can you have?

Hang on....I like young Hogs view best, it seems gloriously untainted by cynicism and bad whiskey...

Bugger it all, I'm going to get a tree!