Ah, a festive tradition - a Christian belly-aching about Christmas losing its essential meaning. Cue a whole host of comments, some backing the author, some trotting out the old cliches about how Christmas is actually a pagan festival and so on, until Christmas is consigned to the dustbin as the festive season ends.

So has Christmas lost its meaning? No, no I don't think it has. But that is because I don't think that it has just the one meaning. It was once a pagan thing. And yeah, there is Christian content - hence Christ-mass. But it has come to be about other things as well for some - presents, family, food, drink. For some it is just about having a holiday. And for others still it is an annual chance to be a grouch. To a large extent, the meaning of Christmas is what you choose to make it.

Therefore, if you want to have a Christian Christmas, feel free to do so. Go to church. Sing carols. Celebrate the birth of Christ. But don't expect those who have a different interpretation of the meaning of Christmas to conform to your expectations of that holiday. I don't believe in God, and will not be spending this or any other Christmas feigning deference to your favoured myth.

Merry Christmas y'all! Hope you have a good one celebrating in whatever way you see fit and whatever way works for you.

Oh, and don't forget to watch this. I'll be publishing a review of it in the not too distant future.

Unlikely Festive Films

'Tis the season to watch festive films. And what a choice you have! You can watch the curious tale (on paper at least) of a retarded angel saving a put-upon banker from jumping in the river after a particularly bad day in the office*. Or you could watch the once popular Tim Allen turn into Santa in an at times similar manner to the central character in Cronenberg's version of The Fly (albeit it without the body parts falling off or the sheer viscera and pain). Then there's the surprisingly watchable Muppet Christmas Carol, in which Jim Henson's creations sing their way through Dickens' most famous tale. Or there's the genuinely funny Elf, in which Will Ferrell brings a certain level of charm to the one character he can play well - that of the earnest simpleton. But it is more than possible that by the end of the festive season you'll be sick of the traditional festive films, yet at the same time you might not want to watch something as unseasonal as Eraserhead or Black Swan. So I give you five films that are seasonal if only because they are set during the festive season:

Trading Places

A festive favourite that involves two men fucking up the life of an employee over a one dollar bet. It's a great film, though; pretty much perfectly cast and blessed with Eddie Murphy at his peak. The story is entertaining, fast moving and often very funny. So yeah, the central plot may not be that festive, but if you ever want something light yet absorbing for a post-Christmas dinner film, then you could do far worse than this one.

On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Once upon a time it used to be a quasi-tradition that there would be a Bond film broadcast on TV on Christmas day. Actually, it might still be for all I know - there is very little I watch on TV these days, and films I have on DVD are, fairly, obviously, not included in what I do watch. But if I had to choose one Bond film to watch on Christmas Day, it would be this one. Firstly because it is partly set at Christmas - even to the extent where it contains a Christmas song (albeit one that is so sweet and sickly that it could send even the healthiest of us into a diabetic coma). Secondly, it is quite possibly the best Bond film ever - well directed, with a proper story and central romance combined with some great performances. Of course, there is the massive drag factor of George Lazenby - an actor who seems permanently bewildered not only by the fact that he is James Bond, but also by the fact that there is a film crew following him and like shooting stuff and shit. So whenever you watch this one, picture Connery, Dalton, Brosnan, Craig or even Moore as the star. It may be tough to pull off at times (especially when the late George Baker's voice is crudely dubbed onto Lazenby's flapping mouth), but trust me, this makes the whole film much better.

The Poseidon Adventure

A simple premise for this one: a voyage across the ocean during the festive season goes wrong. In fact, it is safe to say it goes really badly wrong. Capsized by a freak tidal wave, a group of plucky survivors fight their way through the upturned ship. Of course, disaster, destruction and death are not necessarily that festive, but there is something curiously Christmassy about a disaster movie. And there are very few disaster movies quite as good as this one. But if you can't get hold of it, then check out Voyage of the Damned - it's more or less that same story, but set in space and with additional Time Lord goodness.

Batman Returns

Ahhh, Christmas in Gotham. And what does director Tim Burton give us as a present? The darkest cinematic interpretation of the dark knight prior to Christopher Nolan deciding that a broken hero with post-traumatic stress disorder was the way forward for the franchise**. A city under siege; traumatised parents killing their deformed, cat-eating baby; said cat-eating baby turning into a bestial version of the Penguin with a penchant for nose biting and attempted mass murder. Plus there's Catwoman; a PVC clad vengeance machine who ultimately turns her back on Bruce Wayne - favouring, instead, death by electrocution with her murderous boss. So yeah... set at Christmas. Not a great Christmas for Bruce Wayne/Batman. Or Gotham. Or Selina Kyle/Catwoman. Or Oswald Cobblepot. Or pretty much any character who appears in the film.

Gremlins

Perhaps the most Christmassy of all the films listed here as this not only takes place at Christmas but contains numerous references to Christmas and is set against the backdrop of snow. It is even, at times, trying to be a twisted version of It's a Wonderful Life. Of course, it also contains vicious little monsters who create havoc and hurt, maim and kill arbitrarily. Indeed, they'd be some characters in this film who might prefer to have spent the festive period in Gotham circa 1992. But there is glee in this film - even if it is often a malicious, sadistic glee. It is a fun and fast-moving motion picture, even if occasionally scary, and as such is perfect for Christmas.

So that's my list of non-festive festive film treats. If you have any suggestions in a similar vein, well, you know where the comments section is...

*Actually, I really love It's a Wonderful Life, despite what I've written here. But it has to be seen to be believed, because any summary of it does make it sound cheesy and annoying.
**And was actually right in this decision.

Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol

It will hardly come as a surprise to regular readers that, ever since the Sycroax tried to invade earth on Christmas Day six years ago while the recently regenerated Doctor lounged around in another man’s bedclothes, a highlight of my Christmas Day has been the Doctor Who Christmas special. And let’s just say that yesterday’s edition did not disappoint.

Now, it is a bit of a cliché for shows to do, as their Christmas Special, a version of A Christmas Carol. And it often goes wrong, because most shows are not suited to retelling the story of Scrooge at Christmas. Fortunately, Moffat seemed to understand this, and gave us a story that used the Dickens tale as a loose template to tell a similar, yet in some respects, a startling different tale. After all, there were no flying sharks in the original A Christmas Carol.

Some people might argue that Christmas Day’s episode was perhaps a little too light-hearted – after all, there were only the briefest scenes of mild peril. Yet this sort of analysis misses the point in two different ways. Firstly, this was broadcast at prime time on Christmas Day. You can’t make it too dark – this has to be for all the family at one of the most relaxing times of year (post Christmas lunch on a day of general indolence). Furthermore, there some very dark undertones to the story. At its heart was a tale of desperately doomed romance and the trauma of an abusive childhood. Karzan Sardick was not just a one-dimensional villain – he was the product of a monster of a father and the bitter realisation that he could only spend one final day with the love of his life.

The story also had nice little twists to keep the viewer engaged. My personal favourite is when the Doctor was being the Ghost of Christmas Future – yes, it was not a great stretch to guess that he was being so to the young Sardick rather than the older version, but it was a nice, but surprisingly unobtrusive, example of intricate Moffat plotting. And, of course, the centre of the story was Matt Smith’s mercurial, complicated Doctor. He’s the man who claims to know nothing about kissing the girl, but ends up engaged to Marilyn Monroe. He is capable of moments of deep empathy, but also often gets so carried away in the moment that he misses what is obvious. And he is unpredictable, energetic and often compelling alien – meaning he takes centre stage in any scene he wanders into.

I’m sure that there will be some people who bellyache about the fact that the Doctor changes history within the story. To this I can only say that such people are missing the point of Doctor Who - he constantly changes history – indeed, that’s the reason why he first became a renegade among his own people. The point is that he cannot change a fixed point in time; clearly, the life of Karzan Sardick was no such fixed point. Besides, as Amy pointed out, people can be rewritten – Sardick went from being the cold monster created by his awful father to the old man bitter about the fate of his love to the old man who made peace with his life, and took the opportunity to spend that final day – Christmas Day – with Abigail. The moment when Abigail told him that he had, given his age, probably waited for too long was simple and touching; it was also the moment that Sardick accepted his fate, and in doing so became a good man.

Any gripes? Well, we could have had longer before the shark became tamed; a bit more of a threat for the majority of the episode would have been good. And this did feel like a companion–lite episode: the very fact that Mr and Mrs Pond were dressed (albeit in their most memorable) costumes from last season couldn’t help (despite the nudge-nudge, wink-wink explanation for why they were dressed like that) but add to the feeling that they were tacked onto the episode. They seemed to exist just to add a further reason to why the Doctor had to save the thousands of people trapped on a crashing shuttle. As if he wouldn't anyway...

But these are minor points. Moffat and his team delivered a wonderful Christmas romp with melancholic overtones. As such, it was perfect viewing for Christmas Day

Merry Christmas, Everybody

In part to aggravate Jackart, and in part to say "Merry Christmas", here's Slade's Christmas anthem (it's an anthem in that it is overplayed at Christmas). Enjoy.

Rather like the Queen's Christmas Address, this is a pre-prepared announcement - I'm not actually blogging on Christmas Day as I have better things to do; such as binge-eating, binge-drinking and the Doctor Who Christmas Special. So if you're reading this on Christmas Day, I urge you to stop and go do something fun. Because Christmas really shouldn't be about blogs like this one.

Anyway, laters all. Have a grand ol' Christmas Day.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl

Probably the best Christmas song ever, and one that manages to be a good song in its own right - a colossal rarity for a festive treat. Enjoy.

I Believe In Father Christmas - Greg Lake

The curse of restricted playback is with us again, but you can enjoy this (slightly angry and bitter in places) Christmas tune over at YouTube. There'll be another one along this afternoon - and I think that one can actually be embedded. Which is nice.

Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)

In which the Ramones create a Christmas song that sounds a lot like the rest of their songs. But with a hint of sleigh bells and the use of the word Christmas. Magic.

It's Clichéd To Be Cynical At Christmas - Half Man Half Biscuit

A little bit of monotonous indie festive whining this morning - but, amazingly, a video I can actually embed. Woo-fucking-hoo. Anyway, enjoy the wonderfully named Half Man Half Biscuit:



BTW, they'll be a second festive treat for you all this afternoon! I know, I know, I'm too kind - but it is Christmas.

James Dean Bradfield - Last Christmas

Today's festive treat is James Dean Bradfield (of Manic Street Preachers fame, natch) performing Wham's "Last Christmas". However, to enjoy it, you'll have to head over to the Tube of You.

The Wedding Present - Step Into Christmas

For today's Christmas song, you'll have to head over to YouTube as, in what I think may well become a theme for the week, embedding has been disabled by request. Still, enjoy an indie version of a not absolutely terrible Christmas tune.

The Top 10 Worst Christmas Songs Of All Time

'Tis the season for recycled pop pap to be pumped by radio stations and into stores across the nation. Yes, we get to hear dreadful dirges that would be rightly ignored at all other times of the year because they happen to have festive lyrics and sleigh-bells in the background. Sure, there are some good Christmas themed songs, but they are very much the exception rather than the rule. And in case you were wondering, this is the list of what I reckon to be the very worst - the steaming turds at the very summit of a big ol' pile of crap. In reverse order:

10 Mistletoe and Wine

There is an increasing number of people who want to revise our opinions of the eighties. Sure, the fashion was loud and the music was a bit bombastic on occasion. But actually there was a lot of joy that can be taken from the eighties - even its music.

This song is a standing rebuke to those people. It isn't so much that it is a bad song (although it is - both smug, calculated and an affront to your ears) but the fact that it was so popular. The best-selling single of 1988 - fuck me, that must have been an appalling year for music.

9 Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End)

The Darkness were a curious band. Whoever thought that making the sort of pomp rock that even Queen at their height would have avoided while wearing spandex leotards was a long-term career option was hopelessly naive. Nonetheless, they were amusing. For about three minutes. And this song is when the joke ceased to be funny.

It is all very well vying to be Christmas number one, but if you want to actually achieve that with a Christmas song, then it is probably best not to do so by writing Scrooge-like lyrics that carp on about an unpleasant Christmas. Particularly not if your "anthem" sounds like phoned in screeching rock music that has been done about a billion times before.

They didn't reach number one, and this was the beginning of the end for the band. They were beaten by a stripped down cover of a song about teenage alienation and depression. Which is somehow fitting...

8 In Dulci Jublio

Mike Oldfields' Christmas tune (well, his cover of it) sounds exactly how you might expect it to if it had been performed a precocious school orchestra. The whole thing has a jaunty air about it for no reason whatsoever, and some of the instruments involved could shred your nerves. The only real indication that Oldfield had anything whatsoever to do with this song is the guitar solo - which is hideously out of place and an example of fret-wankery that even Spinal Tap would have thought twice about.

7 Driving Home For Christmas

There are many things to romanticise about Christmas, but this song - in which Chris Rea rumbles on about driving during the festive season - represents a level of insanity about Christmas that has seldom been replicated. Honest to God, there is nothing to celebrate about driving - or to put it another way, sitting in traffic - at Christmas time. It certainly isn't something to writing a fucking festive ballad about, Rea, you gravel-voiced cunt.

6 Saviour's Day

Is this song tangibly worse than Mistletoe and Wine, I hear you ask? Well, yes, because Sir Cliff of Dickshaft not only offers and aural atrocity for our delectation, but he also decides that he is going to force his God down our throats at the same time. God-bothering and the musical equivalent of botulism - never going to be a winning combination for me...

5 Proper Crimbo

I don't quite know whether it is the least Christmassy thing of all time, but Bo' Selecta must be a strong contender. A man in a rubber mask making crude jokes that cease to be funny after roughly 3.5 seconds is hardly a natural idea to be converted into a Christmas hit. But they did it anyway.

The end result is a bit like a Christmas hit from The Inbetweeners - but only if the characters from that show were deliberately trying to be more irritating and puerile than ever before while mashed up on an heady mix of ketamine and cheap speed. The fact that it didn't make Christmas number one is one of the few things I can cling to when I want to convince myself that our culture isn't in a permanent decline into utter retardation.

4 Do They Know It's Christmas?

The Band Aid 20 version, fact fans. I'm not saying that the other two versions were any good, but the 2004 version just sounds so weedy and so puny that it is an immediate insult to an already pretty crappy song. Rather like Live 8 which (barring the reunion of Pink Floyd) was a generally bad photocopy of the original Live Aid Concert. But it is worth just stressing how pathetic this version sounds - but then again it would, featuring leading lights such as that dweeb from Coldplay. Ultimately, this song only works if it is done in a big, bombastic and slightly pompous yet earnest way. This version sounds like a demo for an utterly anodyne, unthreatening version of the song. Best avoided. Like the plague.

3 Wonderful Christmastime

Paul McCartney, dick that he is, has still managed to write some great songs in his time. Make no mistake about it, this is not one of them. In fact, it makes John Lennon's hopelessly naive Christmas song look like a bona fide classic - since at least that had passion. This is McCartney at his smug, indolent worst. It is just a really shit, lacklustre song.

It sounds like McCartney just went into the studio one day, armed with a half-written lyric and a kid's synthesizer and churned this piece of shit out. I dare say it would prove that you can't polish a turd had McCartney made any attempt to polish it - as it stands, this sounds like a half-hearted attempt at a song that should have been erased from history.

If McCartney ever wonders why so many people hate him (and I don't, for one second, believe that he does) he should listen to songs like this. People hate you, Paul, because at your worst you are smug, self-indulgent and lazy. Songs like this show you wasting whatever talent you might have in the most cynical way possible.

2 Another Rock n' Roll Christmas

Ah yes, the troubling Christmas song. It is, as Gary Glitter songs go, not too bad. I mean, it has lyrics, as opposed to a chant, and a tune, as opposed to an endlessly repeated four-note melody. But there is the whole problem that it is by Gary Glitter. I mean, he went from the position of slightly oafish glamrock star to monster in next to no time. Which is a problem for this song - with lines such as "I love to hear the children sing", "this ain't gonna be no silent night" and "you'll be rocking/in your stocking/when you see you big surprise/I'll be rocking/in your stocking/you won't believe your big blue eyes", it all becomes a little bit sinister.

And because it ended up on so many Christmas compilations, and because so few people seem to realise it is a song performed by a convicted sex predator, it still gets played to this day. Which I sometimes feel is pretty creepy.

1 The Millennium Prayer

So, Sir Cliff of Dickshaft wanted another Christmas number one, but those behind him were not able to come up with a new song for him to warble at the world. So, what to do? Ah, yes, combine the Lord's Prayer with Auld Lang Syne. What could go wrong? Well, given the idea is toxic shite, pretty much everything. But the fact that, at the millennium, you want to convert people to God by performing a song that sounds like a whiney karoke number means that you are utterly naive and completely worthless.

Seriously, Sir Cliff, you can take your God and shove it.

But, as I mentioned at the start of this unexpectedly long post, despite all the above, I do have a sneaking like for some Christmas songs. And one video a day will appear on this blog of the songs I do actually like until Christmas Day itself. So enjoy. Possibly.

The Daily Mail on what I would imagine is something of an annual ritual for them - complaining about how bad the TV was over Christmas. Their reasoning seems to be that people complained about some of the programmes (has there been any year where this hasn't be true?) and that the viewing figures weren't that high. Of course, viewing figures are no indicator of quality, otherwise The X Factor would be one of the best programmes ever, rather than one of the most furiously polished turds in history.

Perhaps inevitably this was the paragraph that stood out to me:

Despite having nine of the 10 most watched shows on Christmas Day, millions fewer tuned in to traditional stalwarts Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that the Christmas episode of Doctor Who was successful. But don't take me at face value (just as you should never, ever take anything The Daily Mail at face value). Let's crunch some numbers.

The End of Time (Part One) had provisional viewing figure of 10.0 million viewers. Consolidated viewing figures were 11.57 million viewers. Not bad, when you consider that the average viewing figures for an episode of the new Doctor Who series have been between 6 and 8 million. And not bad when you consider that The End of Time Part Two got initial figures of 10.4 million - and increase of 400,000 people. Doesn't sound too disastrous, does it?

However, is this a decrease on previous years? The answer is both yes and no. The Next Doctor was watched by 11.71 million, with total viewing figures of 13.1 million viewers. Voyage of the Damned got 12.2 million viewers, with a final figure of 13.8 million. Of course, both of those were stand alone episodes, and one of those starred Kylie. Which is a little different to watching the slow, elongated death of the Tenth Doctor in a two separate broadcasts.

Yet, The Runaway Bride in 2006 got 9.35 million viewers. Tennant's debut, 2005's The Christmas Invasion got 9.4 million; around a million people less than his final adventure.

So to put it in perspective, The End of Time Part One was not the most successful Doctor Who Christmas special ever, but nor was it the least. And in this day and age - of DVDs, Internet TV and Freeview - anything over 8 million is pretty damned good. The Daily Mail is talking nonsense when it burbles on about how this was the worst year ever for Christmas TV, as the viewing figures (and reception) of Doctor Who shows.

But when have they ever let facts get in the way of a good whine story?

A very Merry Christmas to each and very reader of The Appalling Strangeness!

Now, stop reading this blog and do something a little more festive with your day because, I can assure you, nothing else is going to happen here until tomorrow. When I'd imagine a review of The End of Time (Part One) will appear...

The Commercialisation of Christmas

Every year - every single year - people whine and bellyache about the increasing commercialisation of Christmas. The immediate question is what is modern Christmas being compared to? When was Christmas less commercial? During the Blitz, when Britain was struggling to survive? During the Dark Ages, where Christmas was spent foraging for food and living in one's own feculence? Yes, modern Christmas maybe commercialised, but that is not a bad thing.

See, as someone who isn't a big fan of Christmas starting in October or the avalanche of Christmas related advertising that appears everywhere at this time of year, I can understand why people complain about the current state of Christmas. But that is the nature of a capitalist economy. Companies will vie for your attention because they want you to buy their products. Yeah, it is kind of irritating, but it also gives you choice. You can choose between products to give and receive for Christmas. You can choose what you want to eat over the Christmas period. All the advertising, all the tacky spots and endless, shameless promotion is people trying to sell stuff to you that might help to make your Christmas better. Look at it this way - the commercialisation is a means to an end. The end being a more enjoyable Christmas for you, your friends and your family.

At the end of the day, a commercialised Christmas may well see you gorging yourself on food after receiving a gift that you don't really need but kind of wanted anyway. Or you can have a "purer" sort of Christmas, where you worship the supposed virgin birth of a long-dead dude who claimed to be the son of a non-existent God. I know which option I prefer.

On Christmas Shopping

As the big day draws ever closer and people move into what could best be described as an unseemly retail frenzy, I thought that I, as former retailer*, would offer some thoughts on the subject of Christmas shopping.

1. Last Minute Christmas Shopping.

So, it is nearly Christmas, and so far you have managed to buy basically nothing for anyone other than yourself. However, you've noticed that other people have bought presents for you and have taken the time to send them to you. You feel a little bit guilty, and dread the sort of abuse and barely concealed disdain that you are going to get from your friends and family unless you pull your finger out and get some presents. Which means going out shopping during the last days (or day) before Christmas.

Yes, it is going to be unpleasant. In fact, it is going to look a lot like the Hobbesian state of nature out there in the retail world just before Christmas. And there is nothing you can do about that. Sorry, but you're basically fucked. You're going to have to endure the sort of trial that is worthy of the malign imagination of the Old Testament God. The best thing you can do is not whine about how awful it is. That way, you can save valuable energy that can be channelled into more important tasks, like aggressively barging into total strangers and knocking over toddlers in your desperate attempt to get some presents and then get the hell back to civilisation, ASAP.

Of course, there is something you can do to avoid this endurance test in future years. See, here's the trick. Christmas is on the same date every year. This means that you can plan for it. Seriously, plan ahead! Give it a go! You might find it works very well for you. And as part of that planning ahead, you might try shopping online. This is perhaps the best innovation of modern times. You can everything you need without having to get off your fat ass and leaving the comfort of your home. Sure, it won't stop the crowds at Christmas, but it will help to make sure that you are not part of those crowds.

2. Food Shopping.

I was always incredulous about how much people buy for Christmas. Sure, you want to have a nice meal and not run out of stuff, but seriously, people, the shops are only closed for a couple of days! In fact, a lot of stores now open on Boxing Day. You could, if you were so inclined, find some sort of Costcutter that was even open on Christmas Day. The message is simple - buy what you need. Don't buy as if Christmas is actually the End of Days, since all that is happening is a brief holiday for retailers. Not the collapse of civilisation as we know it.

And again, with pre-Christmas food shopping, a little forward planning is not a bad thing. There is no point in turning up on Christmas Eve at 4:30pm at your local supermarket, and demanding both a turkey and a loaf of bread. The supermarket is unlikely to have any - come the 27th, no-one is going to give the first fuck about turkey, so that would simply be dead space on the shelves. And any bread left over - or produce for that matter - is going to be only fit for the bin by the time the doors of the shop reopen. So yeah, the supermarket will be running down its stocks of fresh produce and Christmas related items. If you want a full supermarket and oodles of choice, go shopping now. Or at the very latest, first thing on Christmas Eve. Because come closing time, they're going to have the very definition of a limited choice...

*Albeit one who hated retail and resented customers.

A New Campaign for the Christmas No. 1 Slot

For those of you who are cynical about the (increasingly dubious) attempts to make Rage Against The Machine Christmas No. 1, I give you an alternative. Yes, Half Man Half Biscuit are making a bid for the Christmas No. 1 slot (or, at least, the No. 2 slot) with their song "It's Clichéd to be Cynical at Christmas."

Of course, it one were to be a little bit cynical as we move into the festive season, then one would probably dismiss this as one of the most shameless examples of bandwagon jumping seen in a long while. But that's not really getting in the spirit of things. No, in order to show that I am fully bought into this latest craze for making anything other than The X Factor single Christmas No. 1, I'm going to launch my own campaign. Yes, pop pickers, I want to see The Ramones' festive toe-tapper "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight)" as our Christmas No. 1. Join my campaign, buy the track*, set up the Facebook Group** and help us make an obscure track by an under-rated band Christmas No. 1!

*It is on i-Tunes.

**Because I lack both the time and the inclination to do so.

Onward Christian Soldiers! Etc, Etc, Ad Nauseam.

The Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells Lichfield has a plan:

A bishop is calling on Christians to wear crosses in public to demonstrate they "aren't going to disappear quietly from the market place".

That is a curiously ambigious statement. Is the Bish worried that Christians or their fashion accessories are going to vanish from the market place? Or both? Anyhoo, I think he should unfurrow his troubled brow. I don't think that either are going to disappear from the marketplace anytime soon.

The Bishop of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill said Christians should wear them at work and not be intimidated into putting them away.

Hmm. This is more problematic. If Christians want to wear a cross at work, then - even as an atheist - I don't have a problem with it. As long as their employers don't either. However, if work restrictions don't allow them to wear a cross (which is not an obligation laid down by the Christian faith) then they shouldn't wear said crosses. Because they could end up not being intimidated all the way to the dole queue. And at that point, their posturing over Christian fashion statements is going to appear slightly less important than paying the bills somehow.

He also criticised councils which tried to "rebrand Christmas" for fear of offending other religions.

Such decisions were made out of "sheer ignorance," he said.

"Ethnic minorities are far more anxious about the rampant secularism and commercialism that erodes all Christian standards than they are about their host country properly celebrating its Christian foundations," he said.

I don't have much time for councils trying to rebrand Christmas - not least because Christmas has, in this country, largely been divested of any of its original Christian trappings. But I am staggered that this Bishop is able to set himself up as a spokesperson for ethnic minorities, and am even more surprised at what he claims are the causes for their anxiety. How does he know this? Is he unusually connected to ethnic minorities of Lichfield? Has he had some sort of divine intervention? Or is he just making shit up to prove himself right? You can probably guess which option I'd go for.

The Bish's comments are part of an ongoing campaign to create an image that Christanity is under attack in this country, and that Christians have to fight back by advertising what they believe in. The truth is this country remains very open to Christianity. The fact that less people are going to Church and defining themselves as Christians is down to the fact that Christianity has ceased to offer anything worth having to many people in modern Britain. And it is going to take more than wearing crosses and shrill whining about Christmas to change that fact.

13.8 Million People...

...were watching Voyage of the Damned at the episode's peak on Christmas day - around 55% of the potential viewers). On average, 12.2 million people watched the episode (50% of the potential viewers). That is more than the total number of people who voted for Nu Labour in the last election to give them their landslide. Some eye-opening stats for a show that, at the beginning of 2005, wasn't even on TV.

But stats are meaningless to some extent. After all, the utterly terrible Transformers movie made over $700m. Popularity is no guarantee of quality. 12.2 million people could have been wrong. Were they?

Well, no, they really weren't. Voyage of the Damned was pretty fucking spectacular. It was big, it was bold, it was breathless. It was consistently entertaining, and was the clear highpoint of the Christmas TV (although I will acknowledge, given the general standard of the Christmas TV, that is almost damning with faint praise). Tennant, although he is by no means the best Doctor Who, was convincing in the role and has clearly made it his own. The budget was in place to make the special effects worthy not just of prime time TV, but also of a Hollywood movie. And there was a nice balance between action and adventure alongside the more poignant - and Christmassy - moments.

However there will be some fans who will criticise the production - and I can immediately identify some of the potential criticisms. The villian of the piece was poor - a half-baked Davros, camping it up with a gold tooth in an unconvincing wheelchair. The Doctor fell for Astrid far too easily and for no real reason. And the moment where the Queen fled from Buckingham Palace in her slippers with the corgis was worth a passing smile on the night after a lot of wine. It certainly won't stand up to repeat viewings, and will quickly become wince inducing.

But here's the rub - the above criticisms helped to make the show entertaining. It wasn't designed to be for the fans who take the show far too seriously. It was designed for a well fed and well oiled general public on the evening of Christmas Day. And with that audience in mind, it pitched itself perfectly.

The message to all Doctor Who fans is simple. If you want the show to be shown in a prime time slot on BBC One on Christmas Day with the production values of a Hollywood movie, then it will be a rip-roaring adventure story for all the family with the trappings of Doctor Who. If you want Doctor Who to be a wordy story about a Quark attack on the Zygon fleet against the backdrop of the ongoing Sontaran/Rutan conflict then it will be a radio play, broadcast on BBC Four, at about midnight on 27th July. The fan boy in me be damned, I want to see the show in Christmas day, watch by millions. And Voyage of the Damned did that extraordinarily well.

'Tis the Season...

I love Christmas. I dare say some people, given the general misanthropy sometimes seen on this blog, might expect me to be Scrooge like over the Festive period, but nothing could be further from the truth. Christmas is awesome. It is even better these days because there is actually something worth watching on the TV.

Office Christmas parties, however, are different.

Don’t get me wrong, I do still enjoy a decent office Christmas party. If it has been properly considered and properly planned, it can be a good experience. But far too often they descend into mindless drunkenness, and have all the attendant problems of mindless drinking.

I’m not against drinking. In fact, I rather like drinking. A (rather worryingly) large amount of my life has been spent in various stages of inebriation. But that means, come Christmas, I know how much I can drink and still avoid being utterly, if you pardon my French, shitted.

It is those who don’t drink, or who seldom drink, who tend to be the ones who rapidly get to the state I would define as "mindlessly wasted". It is those who end vomiting anywhere other than in the toilet, who end up fighting and falling over, and who end up humiliating themselves. It is those non-drinkers who probably make up most of the passengers on "the vomit comet". It is a simple message, but one people seem to miss – just because you can drink more at Christmas, doesn’t mean you should. After all, the fact that it is Christmas doesn’t suddenly give you hollow legs and a greater tolerance to alcohol.

So to anyone who is "gonna go mental" at Christmas after a year of relative temperance, think about how you will feel the next day. You’ll have a hangover that makes the very worst flu feel like a light cold. And your stomach will want to eat itself – not just because of the sambuca shots, but also as you remembered the crippingly embarrassing things you did in front of your work colleagues the previous evening.