Comments on: Christmas is coming, not (yet)!

By: Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 01:58:28 +0000

This is one of the reasons I live in France. Actually, if you arrive back in the UK on the 24th Dec, it is quite nice to hear the same old songs that have been playing for the past 30 years!

By: Don

Don — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 21:42:48 +0000

Nobody would hear you:)

By: Wendymr

Wendymr — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 02:46:19 +0000

What? Doesn’t your iphone have noise-cancelling headphones? I’d complain…

By: Vince

Vince — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 06:29:02 +0000

Ahhh, I doubt it. I’d say FvP doesn’t go anyplace with out an I-whatzit, so should have a full mobile entertainment kit with him at all times. He should have the Ride of the Valkyries or the march of the Hebrew Slaves( Beethoven if he really wants to think about music) there at the touch of a pinky and the sweep of an annular. All in all, I’d say he had a certain enjoyment in his ire.

By: no-name

no-name — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 07:41:54 +0000

It is generous to attribute conscious contrivance to the extended Christmas marketing part of the complaint, rather than the simpler explanation that it is the automatic consequence of an absence of alternative creative ideas for inspiring gratuitous consumption.

A real marketing genius would fill the vacuum by making November the main month in which to release a host of new products each prefixed with an “i” or import a specifically November-located European potlatch, dropping the pretended requirement of eventual consumption of goods, with focus instead on creating perceived need to acquire goods solely for the purpose of redistribution on some date in November.

This still leaves unaddressed the independent, gratuitous noise part of the complaint.

By: Vince

Vince — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 04:57:02 +0000

My self I think six weeks, from 10th of Nov. This should be the decent outer mark for general Christmas reminders. You might need to order stuff earlier so having a prod earlier might be handy.
I wonder does it work though, the marketing outside what people think is reasonable. Yes, they tee people off, but they and you will get over it so it’s not as if you won’t buy less because of it. And they might shake a bit more out of the tree.

By: Don

Don — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:17:44 +0000

Well, yes and no: ‘There remain then only the lyre and the harp for use in the city, and the shepherds in the country may have some kind of pipe…’ The scene is almost Bethlehemic, don’t you agree?

By: no-name

no-name — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:06:47 +0000

October? Brown Thomas in Dublin has had Christmas decorations on display (on the top floor) since September. However, it is not possible to identify a single day of the year, much less a season, in which one may cross town on foot or on a bus or in a taxi without being assaulted by several conflicting forms of music (not to mention all the tunes and beeps blaring from mobile phones in highly inappropriate places, which is everywhere I am). It certainly wouldn’t have been allowed in Plato’s republic. Imagine the peace.

By: mojo

mojo — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 20:06:18 +0000

Bah humbug!

By: universitydiary

universitydiary — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 19:51:10 +0000

Heck, Don, I’m all for celebrating Christmas, and indeed I do so enthusiastically. But not in October!