Christmas? Humboldt.

As you may have gathered, I am a light-hearted person, not averse to finding humour in some traditions, even those associated with the approaching solemn festivities. Indeed, it is not entirely unknown for me to join in from time to time. However, there are limits, and I am disappointed by a combination of appalling taste and scriptural inaccuracy that I find in some of this year’s cards. I will illustrate this by referring to two of them. I have disguised the names of the senders, as I do not wish to cause them embarrassment.

1) Cleronica and Vive sent me this one. Fortunately I opened it before I had had my breakfast. I cannot visualise the circumstances under which penguin paedophilia is in any way amusing, or appropriate for the Christmas message.


2) Nalcolm and Mora. There are so many things wrong with this image, that I am at a loss as to where to begin.


First of all, look at the shadows. When you have finished enjoying “Foot Tapper” or “Apache”, look at the shadows on this image. Two of the camels appear to have 3 feet off of the ground, and the third is in danger of toppling over. Secondly, the gentlemen appear to be moving parallel to the star, rather than towards it. I can think of two reasons for this. Either the artist has no sense of perspective - her name is Louise Cunningham, please feel free to contact her and tell her about it – or she felt that if the travelers were to be seen moving towards the star then the picture would depict three camel arses and she is sparing our sensibilities. However, my largest objection is the presence in this picture of the pyramids. I need to expand upon this objection, please bear with me (alternatively, piss off).

The gospel states that the three kings or magi were from the east. East of Jerusalem that is; they were not from Ipswich. Magi is a term normally associated with a bunch of hippy Zarathustrans from Persia, who were into astrology and other such nonsense. The pyramids are in Egypt. Even after sharing a joint the size of Tehran High Street, it is highly unlikely that these strolling itinerants would wander off course quite so much, particularly as they were following a bloody star. Now, those smartarses among you (i.e. the whole bloody lot) may well say “but Scurra, there were pyramidal structures in Mesopotamia at that time” to which I would counter “bollocks”. Or, you could say that this scene was depicting their journey home, after all the gospel does indicate that they took another route on the return leg, in order to avoid Herod. Yes, BUT, on their way home the star would not have been there, would it? And do you really think they detoured via Memphis? Perhaps they nipped down to Dar es Salaam and caught the hovercraft to Mumbai? No, I say “piffle and balderdash” to all of your justifications.

My Christmas sense of ease has been disturbed, and it is unlikely that I will be able to extract the most from the holiday season. Please try to be more careful in future.

I am also sadly aware of the likelihood that in my placing two of the words in the above consecutively, I will be attracting the attention of a whole new tribe of perverts finding their way here via the offices of Theodore and Evadne Google.