Some people watch the Queen every year, I have to admit I do have it on in the background through a wave of reading new books and the smell of sprouts working their way through my digestive system, others ignore it as a throwaway message of nothingness that is no longer relevant to the country. Either way, it’s a bloody good bit of TV I think. Plus it’s like having an extra grandparent who you don’t have to buy a present for.! Which is always good.

I do apologise that this is the first blog of the month and exactly one month from the last but after spending 10 hours a day (fag breaks and throwing a sarnie down my neck excepted) hoying toys into plastic bags and then hoying more (neatly) onto shelves, well, I am more shagged out than if I was dressed as a woman and on Tiger Woods’ contact list. Has been a lot of fun at work though, tiredness aside, but as usual I feel as festive as a Hindu sat on Santa’s lap.

The last time I felt Christmassy was when Heart radio played Band Aid in July 2008. Tch, even the advert for Toys ‘R’ Us didn’t slip a little tinsel into my tushy. Oh well. One day I will break out of retail and not be ruined every year when I want to be happier.

Actually this year there has been a little Christmas ritual that since the year 2000 has been a rather big pile of mouse turds. That is correct, the Christmas Number One Single in the good old chart. Now as an 80s boy who was brought up on such classics as Bohemian Rhapsody, Only You by the Flying Pickets and Cliff Richard Christmas Classics, I used to enjoy the moment when the number one was announced. Through the 1990s there wasn’t one I didn’t enjoy… until 1999 when those goblins in slacks, aka Westlife, took the slot for the first time (preventing any Spice Girls quad of hits which we all know I love).

From then on it was downhill. Robbie and Nicole “I’m from Hollywood so I am obviously annoying” Kidman, that awful Depeche Mode cover by Gary Jules that made me want to punch things AND prevented the Darkness getting the first DECENT, proper Christmas song to number one for bloody years, Band Aid 20 with every pop muppet and that terrible rap from Dizzy Bloody Rascal and then X Factor…. X Factor and more fucking X FACTOR. Simon Cowell turned the race for the top into a prize in a second rate reality TV show. It was like Cowell was saying “come here, sing, make me money, cry a bit, dance a bit, make Ant and Dec look intelligent, pretend to not be gay, make Cheryl Cole look intelligent, make me money, have a number one, here’s the P45, welcome to Pizza Hut, please wash your hands and wear the hat at all times”. It was (was.? IS.!!!) inane pap TV at it’s worst.!

But this year, no one reckoned without the power of the people (and the surprising power of Facebook). I certainly never realised just how far behind the shining shite of this year’s “McDs team member of 2010″ would be saleswise at the end. Half a million sales for Rage Against the Machine as opposed to four hundred and fifty thousand for “Ugly Kid” Joe. It was the first time I have sat on my bed and listened, gripped, to a chart run down since about 1996.! Of course the chart show is no longer Mark Goodyear or Bruno Brookes so I had to put up with Scott Mills, a man so woolly he would make a sheep itch. The daft twat padded out a full 15 minutes with text read outs, stupid bits of trivia about UK Joe and pointless waffle. I actually had my fingers crossed and when he said “and at number two…………

…..It’s Joe”. I could have bloody well stripped off all my clothes with glee and run around in the road waving my plonker at anyone willing to have a gander. Oh the joy. I know it made Cowell a few more pennies. I know it was all a bit pointless and the song wasn’t very festive. I know Cheryl Cole doesn’t really like foreign people, especially in nightclubs (allegedly) but FUCK ME GUV, I am so glad it worked out like that. Plus Journey at number ten.!!! As someone pointed out, if we get ourselves sorted out now, maybe next year we could fill the top forty with Hobbits Classics.! Maybe the top five would be Korn, Slipnott, Audioslave, Nine Inch Nails and System of a Down (not necessarily in that order). Simon Cowell described the loss of the number one to a group with some music history and real fans who understand music as “stupid and cynical”. In the words of my boss, Poke it Cowell. Fucking poke it.

And here endeth the lesson… tis but an hour and a quarter to the birthday of a very special person. So happy birthday Annie Lennox… oh and it’s Christmas too (which is lucky as I am watching the Christmas version of House).

So go and enjoy it you lot.! Happy Christmas, very very Happy Christmas from all at stitchingbastards.co.uk.