School Shoes and Easter Eggs

Firstly, noble reader, I must apologise for not spewing forth this last few days. Sometimes, the Day Job gets in the way - you know how it is!

Today I want to grumble about something ["Makes a change, Farv", I hear you hollerin']. 

I was watching the Gogglebox over the weekend, ensconced as I was amid the gubbins of the Matriarch, and an advert appeared which took me wayyyyyy back to my halogen days of yoof. It is was a 'Back To School' advert for some shop or other. It reminded me of those bitter-sweet days of yore, the last day of school when half of me couldn't wait to get the hell out, and the other part of me that is clingly and needy and would miss the routine of daily school life. Normally, the Scarper Tendency won, and I can still remember a considerable number of those moments when I left the school for the last time for the summer. We weren't a family for copious foreign holidays so I had the prospect of a whole six weeks at home mucking about with the others in the park or at home - blissssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss.

 I used to spend the odd summer back in the Homeland with my Nan and Grandad - memorable and wonderful days of Sesame Street, Painting with Nancy, Laurel and Hardy, Crossroads (with Benny and Miss Doi-anne) and Granada News at Six. We would go to Oldham Market and Nan would buy me gladly recieved plastic crap that only an 8yr old could love. We'd have Scotch Pies for lunch, perhaps a trip to Presto for something for Grandad's tea, a drop by the big Co-Op where Nan used to work - then past C&As where it all went horribly wrong - 'Back To School', on the 18th of frigging July!

It must happen now for the little poppets as they gaze forth to a near-eternity of holiday wonderfulness - only to be assaulted in so many media by the stark reminder that they will have to go back to school sometime. Leave the kids alone, man! Oh, the humanity!

But it happens in all walks of life. I have no doubt that supermarket warehouses will already be holding full pallets of Christmas fodder. By the 3rd of January, Easter fodder starts to find its way to the shelves. Fourteen seconds after the Lord rises from the tomb, summer-holiday fodder is called to the front. We are in such a hurry ..... The problem with this is not so much the cynical profiting from religious feast days the meaning of which has been lost by most, but more because in all this hubbub of retail foreshortening, the year seems shorter and increases our sense of hurry. It is the McDonald's effect - food presented for delictation in less than minute that causes the punter to neck it at Warp Factor Nine. Speed begets speed. Hurry begets hurry. 

I know that in about eleven seconds it will be Easter 2011. I daren't sleep anymore, life is happening too fast now. I might miss a Christmas and a Valentine's Day if I use the loo. Welcome to the 24/7 World that never stops, even if you are caused to by the needs of living.