In ‘An American Werewolf in London’ a couple of American backpackers try to take shelter in a pub near the beginning of the film as they try and cross a generic bit of  Yorkshire, and it is now dark. As they enter The Slaughtered Lamb – which is full – all the talking stops and the locals stare at them with a distinctly unfriendly look.

The boys leave, and so the story starts properly.

Now, of course the reason for the unfriendliness is due to fear of strangers and more pertinently the werewolf on the loose but this kind of silence as a stranger walks into a pub is observable in real life. Oddly though, I almost feel more like this every day as I walk around London or anywhere else in the South East where people are always in a particular hurry. No one belongs and no one offers casual friendship, often not even the politeness of a word or eye contact and not even in some cases when the people who meet in this way are acquainted. We’ve been blanked many times by people we thought we knew well, and have probably done the same to others, as we rush off to the next terribly important thing we have to do.

Thankfully, at the weekend when we walked into a pub – the Fighting Cocks in Stottesdon, Shropshire to be precise – we had the opposite. We had smiles, several of the staff chatted with us pleasantly, seemed genuinely interested (and did not seem to mind the mud we brought in, only enquiring had we walked or biked). Behind me a teenage girl (one of several on the waiting staff) asked Derek – the old boy digging into his Sunday roast cheerfully behind us – if he wanted dessert and then suggested the treacle tart; positively received. Clearly he is there every Sunday at least.

Meanwhile the family who had come to celebrate Grandma’s birthday had to deal with the crisis of the unstoppable smoke alarm (well that is all we could glean) but could not get any signal on their mobile, this being middle of nowhere. So they asked the pub if they could use its landline, and got an immediate ‘of course answer’ – cannot see that in central London except in the direst emergency.

I have sometimes wondered what is going on here. Of course the phone borrowers and Derek are locals and the pub lives or dies on them. They could be related for all I know. But they treated us just as well. And it is not just a single pub experience. In fact what this most reminded me of is how we have been treated while on holiday on some of the smaller Islands round Britain, such as the Isles of Scilly or the Outer Hebrides.

In all of these cases, after several days we found people showing us cheerful recognition in a way I normally would only expect from people we knew really well. Now, I am under no illusion that this was anything but surface, but in context it is important. In some of these places, including rural Shropshire in inclement weather become quite isolated. Where we were staying this weekend had a ford to cross and several footbridges had been washed away; there are many places where flooding or snow would effectively cut off a village at least from any motor vehicle. Islands have it even worse, and at sea the weather can be changeable and unpredictable.

So it could easily be that when we are staying on a lovely but tiny island such as Lundy (off the Devon coast) in April, it could quite easily be that the island could be cut off for several days. At that point, the only people you can rely on are your fellow islanders, permanent and temporary. Someone gets ill – is that person in the holiday cottage a Doctor perhaps? Or a just a strong pair of hands to help clear a blockage and/or a soft pair of hands to help look after children who cannot now get to school as the ferry is not running? That stranger who has just walked into your pub might be incredibly useful to you, perhaps a literal lifesaver.

I think a lot of people who live in places that can be potentially isolated understand that (consciously or otherwise). Where we have no need – apparently – to rely on each other, we ignore each other except for the times we have no choice and for our closest friends and family for whom we might make the effort.

The lovely wife and I do have a plan to go and live in the country in our latter years. I hope we can learn to be the kind of people that when a couple of drenched backpackers turn up lost and helpless on our doorstep we welcome them in with honest hospitality and do not cast them out again to the mercy of the wolves.

Last week I was waffling on about the soundtrack of our lives and the effect on personal music tastes and it started me thinking – and laughing – about the very special edition versions of songs that exist in my experience and probably in my experience alone.

It is an area I feel of true nostalgia in that the past gave far more opportunity for creativity due to the limitations of the technology that we used to play and listen to music. Nowadays, with digital precision the mp3 players spool out the track as the artist intended far too reliably.

But when I was a kid, and we were reliant on vinyl and cassettes, then all sorts of interesting effects were possible.

The very first cassette tape I was given by a friend at school was a recording of Queen Greatest Hits volume one, on an incredibly cheap Agfa cassette. The friend concerned had done his best to fit the album on as neatly as possible (although it does not – so my experience of “Save Me” always has it cutting off just before the end) and I more or less wore it out over the years.

The main oddity of this recording was the sound system he had recorded it off was only going through on one half of the stereo. So I was getting only half the track, the right hand side. In most of the songs it doesn’t matter, but Freddie Mercury just isn’t for part of ‘Now I’m here’ and for a while I assumed that ‘Bicycle Race’ had a bell, then a gap of silence and then another bell… Which sounded odd and therefore it was never a favourite track.

I know better now of course. But my one sided version is still the original in my head.

The other classic recording mistake is, of course, the needle jump. As you try lovingly to transfer from the precious vinyl to the cassette, unless you had the best equipment going (I didn’t) then it seemed inevitable.

I am pretty sure all of us of a certain age have our own examples; my best one is my recording of the 7” of ‘Sexcrime (1984)’ by the Eurythmics. OK, it is a pretty stuttering track anyway, but my version quite literally jumped all over the place, no matter how much I tried to clean it with one of those soft yellow cloths that as far as I could tell just added yellow fluff to the dust and the scratches.

Moving away from our own recordings, the other area where our own individual versions of songs exist is in the misheard lyric department. Those cases when for twenty years you think the singer is saying one thing and when you finally find out the lyrics it’s something completely different. Usually something that has the potential to completely change your view of the whole song (a possible disaster scenario).

Thankfully, I am a lyric listener so if it tends to sound odd I usually seek out the words pretty quickly. I know a lot of people though who are less focussed on the words than the music and most of them are a little surprised to find out what the song is about. As a sideline there is that wonderful class of songs that sound cheerful and upbeat but are actually either really rude or depressing – a good example of the latter being the rather odd ‘Hello; this is Joannie’ by Paul Evans, do go and weird yourself out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRfS10Ae46o

One of these that always stuck in my head as a kid (and I have to sing my lyric to, just like Kenny Rodgers’ “four hundred children and a crop in the field” – don’t ask) was The Kane Gang’s 1984 hit ‘The Closest thing to Heaven’ which to this day I am sure is really the closest thing to Hebburn, an unprepossessing suburb of Newcastle next to Jarrow.

And they were from the North East too so it is entirely possible that this is the lyric, and everyone else has got it wrong.  See for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qTPj-pDmQ

If I lived there, I think I would definitely adopt it as a local anthem.

I was having a conversation (OK, an email exchange) the other day with a younger friend of mine who is, and has always been, a massive David Bowie fan, about why people have such odd music tastes. Until last year she had felt well out of things in her peer group as until the former Mr Jones decided to come out with a top selling album from nowhere, most of her contemporaries had no idea who Bowie was never mind having a view on his music.
It got me thinking about what engages people with a particular type or types of music. I specify those that are engaged as I know a number of people for whom music is primarily noise in the background. That’s just the way they are made and they have other things to evoke mood or emotion.
For my friend, it came from parental influence and that is certainly one source of input.
I think most of us either hate the music our parents listened to (and forced us to listen to by default or design) or openly or secretly like it (depending on how embarrassing it might be). I was pretty lucky, as my parents ploughed a late 1960s furrow of 45s that included a wide selection of Beatles, Lulu, Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. It was quite a diverse group of stuff from a limited time period, but that diversity probably influenced the eclectic nature of my music tastes. It also meant that I know more about 1960s pop than I should but that is no bad thing – some of it is very good indeed.
Then again, Val Doonican and Barbara Dickson probably do not get pushed to the front of the CD cabinet.
Then there is the first record you buy (‘Material Girl’ by Madonna), first album (Erasure – ‘The Innocents’) and that stuff that dominates your teen years – for me a heady mixture of Queen, Ultravox and Genesis, with Eurhythmics and Chris Rea thrown in for good measure. This is a key time for most of us leading through university and starting out on adult life, and the soundtrack of this time does stay with us.
And connected there is the connection of music to something good (or indeed something bad… Madonna’s ‘Power of Goodbye’ pretty much sums up the pain of my first relationship).
Here my music tastes take a dive. But then some of the happier times of my life were holidays off the Northumbrian coast, an orgy of rock pooling, castles and fish and chips. Fish and chip smell takes me straight back there to my preteens, but unfortunately so does the music of the late 70s summers; bright, vacuous and frequently disposable. There are things I like from this period that make me cringe, but it is a cringe with a grin. Some people argue that there is no such thing as a guilty pleasure, but people that is not true. I am definitely guilty of crimes against musical taste in perpetuating some of this stuff.
As I go along through life I do also see the difference between people who stay in their period with what they love and those who constant experiment and add to their music collection. Again, each to his or her own, although personally I have a dangerous tendency to explore new music, although hardly in an experimental way – just as well the Lovely Wife is much the same, or she would be more upset at the numbers of CDs I buy (note, I might like new music but I do like a nice shiny disc, a simple download does not really do it for me, although space may force this).
But I do recognise that the sounds of 2013 may not stay with me for too long, bar a few exceptions. While for some people “Get Lucky” will be a nostalgic touchstone for their lives in the same way as dance floor favourites of my college years – ‘Stop!’ by Erasure (again) and Black Box’s ‘Ride on Time’ for example – are to me.
Some will survive, though. I suspect my personal favourite track of 2013 – Bastille’s ‘Pompeii’ – will be in my favourites list for some years to come. Why? Because the subject matter has always fascinated me, and the Pompeii/Herculaneum exhibition last year at the British Museum was fascinating and effecting. So now the confluence of these two things – exhibition and song -is locked in my head.
Oh, and it is a storming track too, of course. But I wouldn’t be foolish enough to try and persuade anyone of that, as it has a special place in my personal soundtrack.
But not as much as some piece of music that to me are truly unique, but more of that to come…

Now that the time of peace and goodwill is over once more, and the boxes are waiting to go up in the loft (the Christmas duck having been freed from the top of the tree only to find himself, once more, trapped in solitary confinement of an old Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin for twelve months) we can all start to be grumpy again. I do wonder if Charles Dickens considered a sequel to a Christmas Carol when Scrooge, in mid January, looked at what Christmas had cost him that year and decided that once was enough.

The latest source of irritation in the house is an old one for many people. These are automated answering systems and their joys. This is the summary of what I heard while trying to keep my face straight as the Lovely Wife tried to gets some sense or indeed any help at all out of a certain – delicious irony – telecoms provider.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

‘I’d like to report a fault on the line.’ [Calm, clear]

Pause. There may have been the slight echo of an automated female voice somewhere out there in the ether.

‘I’d like to report a fault on the line.’ [Slower, slightly louder]

Pause. Still accompanied it seemed by a familiar ghostly murmuring.

‘I’d like to report a fault on the line.’ [Exploring a different emphasis, slight note of tetchiness perhaps]

Pause.

‘I’d like to report a fault on the line.’[Dangerous edge to the voice, husband in danger alert signals recognition and now fully active towards possible evasive action]

If that tone of voice had been used on me, I would immediately have checked for the presence of sharp objects within range and promptly removed them.

What I do not get about these voice recognitions systems is that, well, they seem unable to recognise your voice. Or at least what you say. I have yet to find one that works for me, and I apparently talk ‘quite posh’ and relatively clearly.

So goodness knows what anyone with a strong accent is supposed to achieve. I am not a huge fan of push button systems but at least they don’t make you look like some kind of loony person as you constantly repeat yourself into the handset trying funny voices to see if it will respond. I might try sounding like HAL 9000 next time – see if pretending to be an automaton gets a response.

It does not have to be like that; later that day I had a cheerful online chat with technical support from a certain visual media streaming organisation as someone had used my email to set up an account with them.

I was somewhat surprised to get confirmation of my account come into my inbox, especially as it was addressed to ‘Rachel’. It took two minutes, it was sorted out and although there was no actual verbal communication it felt like you were talking to a real person. I even got the feeling that ‘Nicholas’ enjoyed his job. Or maybe it was just that he was amused at English bloke being called Rachel.

Talking to a real person doesn’t always work, especially the way that many firms outsource their call centres in ways that sometimes feel awkward or inappropriate. But I do think we should not depersonalise our communications. History tells you that in any sphere, the moment we stop seeing each other as people, bad things happen.

Writing this in a hurry on New Year’s Eve, having just remembered it is actually a Tuesday, I cannot help think that for me at least this has been a so-so year. Last year, 2012 was a weird mixture of great and the terrible, but last year… Well, nothing really bas new happened to me and it won’t go down as a classic. But then I am not sure I am the age now that the roller coaster rides than years can be is well suited. So maybe I will let my younger friends experience this for now and I’ll move a bit slower.

So what are my hopes for 2014?

Well, first off that the people I love are safe and those who are ill or under pressure from any source of attack find improvement and relief. I have several friends and family who are in that class and I hope that this time next year things look better for everyone one way or another.

For me though, I need to sort some stuff out that has been hanging around for too long. And I am not just talking about our pond, although that is one of the easier things to deal with. I need to start shedding a few pounds and a few bad habits, and we all know how difficult the latter one is. The problem with bad habits is that they are habits because we like doing them. But some are just not sustainable and need to change. For example, like a lot of people of my age I drink more than I should; and I am a terrible hoarder, so not only do I need to stop collecting stuff, I need to (shakes with horror) get rid of some of the stuff that has accumulated over the years and I know perfectly well I will never look at again… But its mine, you see. Sigh. This is going to be harder than it sounds.

Positively though there is much to look forward to this year, and I want to try and drag some of the holiday feeling from Christmas and New Year through the year, at least personally; I like this time of year but tomorrow is always a down day for me, and not just because of the late night and sore head. It is just that a lot of the nice things from the holiday season sort of evaporate, and while I don’t wish it could be Christmas every day at would be nice to have a little celebratory thing to look forward to each month… So let’s see how that goes.

I want to keep writing, and start experimenting with longer forms. I have been producing a short story a week all year and found it extremely enjoyable; some of my tiny readership seems to have liked them too (although as they are incredibly nice, maybe they are just being nice). But increasingly I am finding that some of the continuing threads I have need to go more to the novella format to do them justice so time to try and find the time to increase the word count while maintaining my Friday fiction club.

Part of that will have to wait until after the end of April when I – with luck – finish my Open University Humanities degree; it has been about five years and I have learned a lot about things and myself in that time. I’m very much looking forward to possibly graduating sometime this year. I was inspired to do it by a friend and I’ve never regretted it (although to do essays and exams “for fun” is truly weird).

The other significant event for me this year is of course our tenth anniversary – and if I am going to achieve anything at all useful this year it is with the support of the Lovely Wife. I’ve no idea what we are going to do to celebrate (it is her turn to organise) but I know it will be fun, because she will be there.

And, as always, I need to try and be there to encourage and support my friends – young and old – where I can. Love you all, and Happy New Year.

Recently the Lovely Wife and I were in Coventry – a surprisingly charming city – and had a few hours to kill, so we thought we would do a little window shopping.

In Coventry city centre there is one shop building that dominates the area known as Broadgate, opposite the statue of Lady Godiva.

It is a giant Primark, at least three floors of cheap clothing (so really Lady Godiva has no excuse for her nakedness) and it was heaving, it being a Saturday near to Christmas.

I had a particular mission in mind. It was to peruse the selection of Christmas jumpers available and to see just how awful they could really be.

Last year I noticed that there was a bit of a silly Christmas jumper thing going on but refrained from buying one. But I mentioned it to the Lovely Wife and she offered to knit me one for this year. Then she made the mistake of asking me to choose the subject matter (other than having some form of Christmas feeling to it, obviously).

Of course, it had to be a penguin theme.  But it had to be a proper penguin, not one of these wide eyed, round birds wearing red hats that bear no resemblance to the bird in question. Undaunted, the Lovely Wife tracked down some 1970s patterns including one of an Emperor penguin and chick.

Well, I was sold straight away on that.

You see, an Emperor penguin is a man’s penguin. Male Emperors are the hard men of the bird world. No other creature is quite hardcore enough to face the Antarctic winter with the rest of the lads, while carefully babysitting their little offspring, while all the girls go off to warmer climes and stuff their faces for the entire winter.

If I’m going to have a penguin on my chest it is going to be this fine example of parenthood.

The process of creation of this bespoke Christmas jumper was a painful one – including a hiatus where an unpicking of the work to date almost resulted in abandonment of the project completely – but in the end the jumper was complete and glorious, and in time for Christmas.

Although it does, on reflection, have a lot of white in the design which considering my enthusiastic eating style does mean extra care. But I’m very proud of it and of the creativity and graft of the Lovely Wife.

So I knew this when we went into Primark and there was no chance that even the £12 price tag was going to tempt a garish Rudolf onto my chest any more than I was going to buy a Rudolf onsie (I already have one from last year anyway).

But we were not disappointed with, ahem, quality. A lot of the specimens in the messy piles of jumpers available were quite dreadful. It was interesting to note too that the taste and cost go hand in hand in this genre; the less tacky and more reasonable ones (including the subgenre that you might describe as merely festive, with snowflakes and the like rather than characters off a cheap advent calendar) were almost double the price (horror).

However, I am not going to be too hard on the Christmas jumper. There is one thing that we need to be thankful for.

It is only for Christmas.

Come the New Year they will go in the charity shops and/or boxes in the loft and the bad dress sense will return to normal, ahem, style (i.e. boys with half slung trousers that can therefore hardly walk, girls who think tights can be worn without the aid of a skirt or shorts etc. Feel free to add your own “What are you thinking?” example).

But I am very fond of my penguins.

If the weather gets very icy and cold, I might just use it to take a little bit of Christmas into the barren wasteland that is January to eke out the season just a little bit.

But for now, have a lovely Christmas, one and all.

Now that we are well into Advent this year’s batch of Christmas themed records are coming out on a more or less daily basis.

 Bit of an odd bunch this year; I kind of get the feeling you have to take turns (unless you are Cliff Richard) to bring out a Christmas song (or worse, an entire album).

 So last year we had Rod Stewart and Ceelo Green, and Michael Bublé (or that might have been the year before, I have more important things in my life than to research that) and this year we have Leona Lewis.

 We can add to that singles from the ubiquitous Bellowhead who seem to be competing with Lilly Allen in the wall to wall presence stakes.

 On the subject of Mrs Cooper, we see before our eyes the elevation of a song with nothing at all to do with Christmas to the status of inclusion in every “Greatest Christmas Album in the World… Ever!’ from this point onwards with that (now annoying) John Lewis advert.

 The best example before this is probably ‘The Power of Love; back in the 80s, a clever bit of marketing by Frankie Goes to Hollywood to secure their third and final number one.

 At least that song means that fearsome tormentor of Penelope Pitstop – the Hooded Claw –gets an unlikely shout out each year to an increasing series of blank looks from people you are far too young to get the slightly obscure reference. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMtA8ahAwDI

 But I have to confess I like Christmas records. With Eurovision no longer as big a deal as perhaps what it once was, it is about the only place we are going to get songs that are either overly cheerful or sarcastic or sad (never subtle) that then allow many artists to get that bit of silly nonsense out of their creativity zone and hopefully go back to proper music for the rest of the year.

 I think everyone has their pet hates, and although they might not admit it, the few they quite like. Personally, I am a Slade fan; I look forward now to Radcliffe and Maconie’s radio show on 6Music just before Christmas as now it is tradition for Noddy Holder to come on to scream “It’s Christmas!” to officially open the festivities of the season.

 I also have a soft spot for ‘Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy’ from back in 1977.

 However, I am not sure that this is purely for listening to the most unlikely duo in pop history. In recent years I discovered the original film version from a Bing Crosby Christmas special, an atrocious and therefore hysterically funny presentation which has David Bowie turns up at some stately home to exchange stilted dialogue before launching into an impromptu duet. As you do. Apart from the staged nature of the whole thing it is quite obvious that the senior party has no idea (and no interest in) who David Bowie is. Treat yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiXjbI3kRus

The only other Christmas video that makes me laugh so much is the Darkness’ Christmas Time (Don’t let the bells end) although that one should be viewed rarely due to the disturbing content.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhuoY5h2kE

 New “classics” don’t seem to come along that often and most of them just seem to get (thankfully?) forgotten. Being a huge artist helps with longevity… George Michael’s ‘December Song’ and Coldplay’s ‘Christmas Lights’ seem to be hanging on there for example. Some I hope survive through just being of a higher quality, such as Thea Gilmore’s wonderful ‘That’ll be Christmas’ from (can I really believe it is that long ago?) 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qQAE794uvo

 The one Christmas song I will recommend if you are in the buying mood this year is by 90s band Dodgy. The song is “Christmas down at the Food bank” raising money for the Trussell Trust who provides that service. At a time of so much gluttony for most in the UK, seems a small price to pay to help feed the poorest in our own society and, well, the song could be worse I suppose.

 Look for it in the usual download-y places.

I am trying hard to get into the Christmas cheer this year and getting there slowly – the ritual of the erection and decoration of the Christmas tree helped of course. The weather refuses to behave in a proper winter fashion and makes me think it is still October.

And the Christmas music is not, yet, wall to wall, although it will be soon driving me up one I am sure.

What is keeping me away from the Christmas cheer most of all is the traffic.

I have moaned about the M25 before now. It is a bit of an easy target and it is the Road to Hell (aah, my Chris Rea love comes through, or indeed a giant satanic prayer wheel if the excellent and hilarious Good Omens – go read it, you’ll never look at a sherbert lemon in the same way again – is to be believed). Last year, in the run up to the Olympics there was a delicious period when the road had been widened considerably in preparation for the games and suddenly each journey seemed smooth and swift. Gradually, over the intervening months, the level of traffic has slowly crept up and up however, and the capacity has been filled. In fact, in over ten years of grinding out my thirty mile commute to work it has never been this bad, especially in the mornings.

The worse thing about it for me is not the time wasted stuck in a slow moving jam, or boredom – I’m a good radio and podcast listener so I can catch up with things I would otherwise miss. I can think about new short story ideas (though I am usually too tired to write them down when I eventually crawl into the office) or even (gasp) think about work.

Nor is it the waste of fuel (although that does concern me and the hybrid does help a bit).

No, the thing that I hate the most is what this does to me personally. When eventually I get out of the queue of traffic my level of patience with my fellow drivers is an all time low. I refuse to let people out (even the pretty girls) when normally it would be with a smile and a wave. I drive too close to the old dears who for some insane reason have decided to take the road at the same time as everyone else is, instead of sensibly waiting to a quieter time.

Finally, when I do get into the office or home, I am in a foul mood ready to snap the head of any unfortunate who may stray into my path before hot cup of tea or a stiff gin can begin the transition away from the malicious, twisted troll I have become and back into my preferred incarnation of bemused puppy.

I was thinking about it this yesterday as I stomped into the office, slammed my bag down and aggressively plugged in the laptop. I am still thinking about it now, having had the cathartic experience of writing this. In the end, with anything you want to change, you have to really want to do it and make some effort.  At least I can recognise the problem, and will try and stay away from becoming a road ogre in future.

But I am looking forward intensely to the days when our situation means I do not have to do this commute every again.

For now I have to rely on happier things; on a lovely wife, great friends, a snowman made out of gingerbread and marshmallow for lunch and the knowledge that, once again, The Christmas Duck will be tied helplessly to the top of a tree for a few weeks. And tied pretty tightly poor thing; the journey home wasn’t great either.

Still, the tree is now flashing (if leaning somewhat worryingly) and  after a morale boosting watch (OK, quote along) of The Princess Bride (and yes, it is a Christmas movie too, which we only realised last year, Fred Savage’s bedroom has all sorts of Christmas decorations up) and I’m finally feeling a bit more seasonal.

Time to dig out my sleigh bells I feel (not joking, my lovely wife is rolling her eyes as she reads this…)

I have always enjoyed Advent. I find it a little odd as from a Christian tradition this is a time of preparation for the festival and feasting of Christmas, but unlike Lent, which is much the same for Easter (at least in theory) where those who observe go through fasting and deprivation of some sort of another, Advent seems to be an excuse to do exactly the opposite. As a child, I had no problem with that. I don’t have a problem now, but I do find it funny. I guess at this increasingly dark time of year chocolate is more comforting than fasting, while at Easter we are looking increasingly at the late spring and summer to keep us cheerful.

I guess the only problem I do have is that the slow build up to Christmas allows for a rise in excitement which makes coming down the other side – once the presents are opened, the turkey consumed and everyone is asleep in front of the Queen (well that was how it worked in my childhood) – that much more depressing.

At least these days I have a Doctor Who special to look forward to.

But while it lasts I used to enjoy the build up that Advent presented. I was terribly spoilt though. As an only child of a giving set of parents I was not limited to a mere Advent calendar and a piece of chocolate supposedly shaped into a robin or a snowman or whatever (honestly, who are they fooling?). No. I had my very only Santa every day.

Well strictly speaking it was “Little Santa”, either to differentiate from the real one or as some kind of nod to dear Little Ted (who is still lurking around the house, Big Ted having been relegated to the box that where toys that you cannot bear – ho ho ho – to part with but could be blown apart by a minor draft lie in perpetuity). Little Santa was made of a toilet roll, red felt and cotton wool. More impressive was Rudolf, who also started life in the toilet but even had twig antlers (nice touch, mum).

From as early a time as I can remember they would be standing out on the snow field – OK, the piece of cardboard with more cotton wool stuck on it – from December 1^st. Little Santa was never without his own little hessian sack. And in the sack, joy of joys, a perfectly wrapped little Christmas present, with the date stuck on it with tape.

Every morning as I listened in vain to the radio in the hope that my school would be closed in the inclement North East weather (it wasn’t, as it happens. It never was. To the youth I know – I have no sympathy for a lack of Snow days whatsoever) I could at least have the consolation of something wrapped up for me. Alright, we are usually talking the level of a packet of Refreshers, but a present is a present. As any child knows, the more presents, however small they might be, the better. After all, most kids do not understand the concept of money anyway so why waste cash on something ridiculously expensive if you can get them in to paroxysms of excitement with a whole mountain of junk you bought in Wilkinson’s for a tenner (in total)?

Save your money for when they are in their teens and they actually start to be more selective.

Actually I think my daily Advent present probably generated more Christmas excitement than the day itself, present wise. Possibly because I felt I was getting something unique when others only had misshapen chocolate fragments. Possibly because my dad always threatened that the only present I would get on Christmas day was a matchbox with Smarties in it. I usually got that as well, although thankfully there was always a pile of other stuff.

I still enjoy Advent, although Little Santa (and Rudolf) is long gone. Now we have the Christmas Lemur (he’s actually Irish, but you wouldn’t know) and he never has anything for me, but that is fine. I have always enjoyed the giving rather than the receiving and I have my lovely parents to thank for that, for teaching me that giving is something which does not always need a lot of money, but does need a lot of heart.

It was a momentous weekend. Everything changed and had to be reassessed. The past will never quite be the same and the future will look a little different, because of the events that happened this weekend.
Unfortunately, I am not talking about the 50th anniversary Doctor Who special, which thankfully lived up pretty much to expectations (and look out for the “Five Doctors(ish) Reboot” spoof; even the Lovely Wife found that hilarious and she doesn’t get all the in jokes).
Nor am I not talking about the true beauty of the Dalek cupcakes that appeared from nowhere to invade first the kitchen and then my stomach.
No. It was the weekend when the Daleks were not the only user of technology that ended up destroyed.
I operate out of two laptops – a work and a home one. Both had hard disk crashes this weekend, apparently entirely coincidentally. I was not impressed.
I was even less impressed when my iPhone decided to commit suicide by refusing to charge, no matter what I tried. As I watched the battery slowly dropping, the increasingly frustrating idiot (I am sorry, but he was) on the end of the phone waffled his way through the blatantly obvious stuff before thirty minutes later coming to the conclusion it was probably a software problem and I should talk to Apple. So I can get the software upgraded. Well thank you. Now the battery is dead, so how am I supposed to do that now, young man, hmm? (Just channelling a bit of First Doctor there, you understand).
So that’ll be a new phone then. Sigh.
Now back to the laptops. Well, the home one is a pain but that would have to be replaced at some point in the next few months anyway. And, I hear you say, well, the work one is your Companies problem. They can just replace it, right?
Well, yes. They can give me a new hard drive. But those of you who might be IT focussed are holding their head in their hands and shaking it sadly.
I last backed up the computer at the end of 2011.
That’s almost two years of data that now is inaccessible (well, unless you want to pay a fortune to a specialist).
I am a little cross with myself.
Now it is not a huge disaster. An awful lot of what is important to me has been sent to others and can be got back from them, or I can get out of my sent folder. My blog fiction is gone, but it is all still on the blog… So I can rescue that too. One story that was just being prepared will never be told in the original form; I have to persuade myself to have the enthusiasm to rewrite it.
But if I had backed up properly, this would have been a hundred times less painful and catching back up a lot easier.
I wonder if as you read this, a little voice is asking politely (or not, I have no idea how the voices in your head work, but let’s assume they are polite) when you last backed up your own data… I suspect it is not recently.
So let me encourage you to do it. Do it now.
And if you don’t have a back up, what are you thinking? Get someone to buy you an external hard disk at Christmas and celebrate protecting your work with a mince pie and a small sherry this holiday season.
Trust me. Unlike the Doctor I cannot mess around with the Space/Time Continuum and prevent disaster.
You can.