Saturday, December 06, 2008

Winter is here

So, here we still are. Calypso is open in winter mode: Daytimes only, 10 - 6 lunches, snacks, coffees, drinks...oh and Monday night is 'games night' with a 6 euro buffet.

We are off to England in a weeks time for Christmas visit. Last year we were shocked not only by the drop in temperature but also by the way England seems to be a nation unable to remove it's collective eyes away from a TV screen for any meaningful length of time. We were extremely fortunate to escape the UK (where we didn't have a TV anyway) before the onset of mainstream cheap reality TV. We missed out on 'BB', 'BB2', 'Son of pro-celebrity BB', 'I'm a pop idol get me out of BB6' and all of the other thinly disguised rehashed garbage. So it's not like there is anything good to watch.

All of this would almost be forgivable but the biggest shock was that we were trying to tear peoples attention away from....Celebrity Come Dancing. Now, bear with me here. In the last millennium (oh, don't ya just miss it!) Come Dancing was tucked discreetly away in the schedules and watched only by friends & relations of the contestants, OAPs, sequin fetishists and as BBC marketing executives call OAFS (an 'almost acronym' of 'Other Assorted Sad F******') Last year the show was taking up an awful lot of prime time slots and hairy-arsed truck drivers from Rochdale were discussing it in the pub. We felt like taking the UK by its collective elbows and giving it a good shake and slapping round the face shouting 'It's Come Dancing you're watching for christsakes!'

I can only conclude that the French have put something in the water.

I do hope it will be different this year. Please God it can't get worse....can it?