Christmas questions!
I did some Christmas questions.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper. What are gift bags? Sounds like something you'd get from Ann Summers. Massage oils, Belgian chocolate, a deep purple & red basque, and a vibrator. You should always wrap presents, otherwise they don't look like presents.
2. Real tree or artificial?
The only tree we've ever had is an artificial one. It is only five foot tall and invariably looks pathetic.
3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually sometime around my birthday, which is about two and a half weeks before Christmas.
4. When do you take the tree down?
My dad gets fed up with it and pulls it down on New Year's Day.
5. Do you like eggnog?
I've never had it. It sounds shit though. What are good Christmas drinks? Sherry. Port. Scotch. Martini.
6. Favourite gift received as a child?
Christ, I can't remember much of what I got as a kid. I got a big red bus once, that was fun. And some sort of Thomas The Tank Engine train set, which I used for acting out apocalyptic train crashes that almost destroyed the entire British railway network, and left Thomas needing reconstructive facial surgery via the medium of Tippex.
7. Do you have a nativity scene?
No. I'm tempted to make one though. It will be based on a Working Title film. The three kings will be played by the Sugababes, the shepherds will be played by the entire cast of Spaced, the innkeeper will be Rowan Atkinson, Ant and Dec will be Mary and Joseph and Kris Marshall will be the Baby Jesus. Also starring Hugh Grant as King Herod, David Tennant as Emperor Augustus, Keira Knightley as the Angel Gabriel and Chris Martin from Coldplay as the lowing cattle. Take That will do the soundtrack, and they'll also have cameo roles as Rambunctious Jew #1, #2, #3 and #4.
8. Hardest person to buy for?
No-one really, but then I never know what I'm buying until I'm actually out there, on the street. I do off-the-cuff Christmas shopping: I go out and have a look, and I buy whatever catches my eye.
9. Easiest person to buy for?
As above.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Oh, I don't know. Socks and shampoo and all that stuff you can buy in a chemist are pretty boring, but they're not bad, they have their uses. If I had to pinpoint a worst present, it would be that track off Spice Girls - Spice (cassette, Christmas Day 1996) where Geri does a verse in Spanish. May God have mercy on our souls.
11. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards?
You send them in the post. If you don't, you're a dickhead who probably works in advertising.
12. Favourite Christmas film?
Home Alone. Home Alone Two. Home Alone Thr... no, fuck that. The Muppets' Christmas Carol. Virtually any version of A Christmas Carol. It's A Wonderful Life, which I've never seen, but apparently it's schmaltzy even by American standards, which has to be good. Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas. Television-wise: the Steptoe and Son Christmas specials. Nigella's Christmas Kitchen (I hope they repeat that this year). Christmas Day Top of the Pops. Carols from Kings' College, Cambridge. The BBC after it closes down at night, and they just show the Teletext pages and play Christmas music. All of which reminds me: I must buy the Christmas Radio Times soon!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
End of November/start of December. I haven't started this year's yet.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Only some cheap liqueur chocolates Emma's mum bought me a couple of years ago. They were recycled from my mouth into the dustbin.
15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas?
Terry's Chocolate Oranges. They're not Terry's (and they're not yours either, Dawn French)...they're mine. From the actual dinner itself, sausages in bacon (or 'pigs in blankets' as they're sometimes called) - very good shout, anothercolour - and stuffing! Stuffing is marvellous. It has to be Paxo though, not some rubbish with horse chestnuts in. Oh yeah, and Quality Street. Particularly the coconut ones.
16. Clear lights or coloured on the tree?
Coloured lights, because they have anarchic qualities: they inspire terror in the hearts of all those who prefer clear lights and think coloured lights are 'tacky'. People who like clear lights are complete bastards who want everything to become homogenised. They lament the fact that the British Empire ever broke up, because they loved the thought of all our officers going round raping the coloured folk in their bid to create a white paradise across the world. Buy coloured lights or support imperial-supremacist dogma! Mind you, one year we didn't have any lights at all. That was a very misanthropic year.
17. Favourite Christmas song?
Oh man, where do you start? You can't go wrong with most of the carols - Silent Night, In The Bleak Midwinter, O Holy Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Once In Royal David's City, The First Noël, Hark The Herald Angels, I Saw Three Ships. In fact the only really crap ones I can think of are Away In A Manger and the really obvious ones you sing at school, that were blatantly written by the headteacher in about five minutes. The ones that plodded along in the same key all the way through and rhymed "donkey's bray" with "Christmas day". And concluded with the words "Merry Christmas to us all, black, brown or white", so Equal Opps didn't come crashing down on them like a ton of bricks. Anyway, from a more secular realm there's Twelve Days Of Christmas, Judy Garland's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Sinatra's version is alright too), Perry Como's There's No Christmas Like A Home Christmas, the Andrews Sisters' Christmas Island, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York, Low - Just Like Christmas, Simon and Garfunkel - Seven O'Clock News/Silent Night, Hematic Sunsets - Weihnachten im Aroma Club, Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas, Harry Belafonte/Boney M - Mary's Boy Child, Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas (providing you ignore the lyrics), Mud - Lonely This Christmas. And I don't even mind that hoary old standard White Christmas too much. The only truly hellish one I can think of at the moment is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses, which is surely the most abysmal song in existence. Last Christmas is pretty dire too.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
I usually stay at home, although 'home' has shifted to Emma's house for the last couple of years. My parents don't give a toss what we do for Christmas, so I can go where I please!
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Dixons, Currys, Old Joe, Chemical Ali.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
It's usually a star, I think. In recent years, it's been a star fashioned by my sister a few years ago, which features the face of her long-deceased hamster in the centre. As far as I know, this much-loved object still adorns the tree to this day, despite persistent attempts by me to set fire to it.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas morning, I'm not fucking German. Although a couple of years ago I didn't wake up 'til 12.30pm, so it was Christmas afternoon.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
January!
23. What I love most about Christmas?
Making a point of not watching the Queen's Speech.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Wrapping paper. What are gift bags? Sounds like something you'd get from Ann Summers. Massage oils, Belgian chocolate, a deep purple & red basque, and a vibrator. You should always wrap presents, otherwise they don't look like presents.
2. Real tree or artificial?
The only tree we've ever had is an artificial one. It is only five foot tall and invariably looks pathetic.
3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually sometime around my birthday, which is about two and a half weeks before Christmas.
4. When do you take the tree down?
My dad gets fed up with it and pulls it down on New Year's Day.
5. Do you like eggnog?
I've never had it. It sounds shit though. What are good Christmas drinks? Sherry. Port. Scotch. Martini.
6. Favourite gift received as a child?
Christ, I can't remember much of what I got as a kid. I got a big red bus once, that was fun. And some sort of Thomas The Tank Engine train set, which I used for acting out apocalyptic train crashes that almost destroyed the entire British railway network, and left Thomas needing reconstructive facial surgery via the medium of Tippex.
7. Do you have a nativity scene?
No. I'm tempted to make one though. It will be based on a Working Title film. The three kings will be played by the Sugababes, the shepherds will be played by the entire cast of Spaced, the innkeeper will be Rowan Atkinson, Ant and Dec will be Mary and Joseph and Kris Marshall will be the Baby Jesus. Also starring Hugh Grant as King Herod, David Tennant as Emperor Augustus, Keira Knightley as the Angel Gabriel and Chris Martin from Coldplay as the lowing cattle. Take That will do the soundtrack, and they'll also have cameo roles as Rambunctious Jew #1, #2, #3 and #4.
8. Hardest person to buy for?
No-one really, but then I never know what I'm buying until I'm actually out there, on the street. I do off-the-cuff Christmas shopping: I go out and have a look, and I buy whatever catches my eye.
9. Easiest person to buy for?
As above.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Oh, I don't know. Socks and shampoo and all that stuff you can buy in a chemist are pretty boring, but they're not bad, they have their uses. If I had to pinpoint a worst present, it would be that track off Spice Girls - Spice (cassette, Christmas Day 1996) where Geri does a verse in Spanish. May God have mercy on our souls.
11. Mail or e-mail Christmas cards?
You send them in the post. If you don't, you're a dickhead who probably works in advertising.
12. Favourite Christmas film?
Home Alone. Home Alone Two. Home Alone Thr... no, fuck that. The Muppets' Christmas Carol. Virtually any version of A Christmas Carol. It's A Wonderful Life, which I've never seen, but apparently it's schmaltzy even by American standards, which has to be good. Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas. Television-wise: the Steptoe and Son Christmas specials. Nigella's Christmas Kitchen (I hope they repeat that this year). Christmas Day Top of the Pops. Carols from Kings' College, Cambridge. The BBC after it closes down at night, and they just show the Teletext pages and play Christmas music. All of which reminds me: I must buy the Christmas Radio Times soon!
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
End of November/start of December. I haven't started this year's yet.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Only some cheap liqueur chocolates Emma's mum bought me a couple of years ago. They were recycled from my mouth into the dustbin.
15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas?
Terry's Chocolate Oranges. They're not Terry's (and they're not yours either, Dawn French)...they're mine. From the actual dinner itself, sausages in bacon (or 'pigs in blankets' as they're sometimes called) - very good shout, anothercolour - and stuffing! Stuffing is marvellous. It has to be Paxo though, not some rubbish with horse chestnuts in. Oh yeah, and Quality Street. Particularly the coconut ones.
16. Clear lights or coloured on the tree?
Coloured lights, because they have anarchic qualities: they inspire terror in the hearts of all those who prefer clear lights and think coloured lights are 'tacky'. People who like clear lights are complete bastards who want everything to become homogenised. They lament the fact that the British Empire ever broke up, because they loved the thought of all our officers going round raping the coloured folk in their bid to create a white paradise across the world. Buy coloured lights or support imperial-supremacist dogma! Mind you, one year we didn't have any lights at all. That was a very misanthropic year.
17. Favourite Christmas song?
Oh man, where do you start? You can't go wrong with most of the carols - Silent Night, In The Bleak Midwinter, O Holy Night, O Come All Ye Faithful, Once In Royal David's City, The First Noël, Hark The Herald Angels, I Saw Three Ships. In fact the only really crap ones I can think of are Away In A Manger and the really obvious ones you sing at school, that were blatantly written by the headteacher in about five minutes. The ones that plodded along in the same key all the way through and rhymed "donkey's bray" with "Christmas day". And concluded with the words "Merry Christmas to us all, black, brown or white", so Equal Opps didn't come crashing down on them like a ton of bricks. Anyway, from a more secular realm there's Twelve Days Of Christmas, Judy Garland's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Sinatra's version is alright too), Perry Como's There's No Christmas Like A Home Christmas, the Andrews Sisters' Christmas Island, The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York, Low - Just Like Christmas, Simon and Garfunkel - Seven O'Clock News/Silent Night, Hematic Sunsets - Weihnachten im Aroma Club, Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas, Harry Belafonte/Boney M - Mary's Boy Child, Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas (providing you ignore the lyrics), Mud - Lonely This Christmas. And I don't even mind that hoary old standard White Christmas too much. The only truly hellish one I can think of at the moment is Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses, which is surely the most abysmal song in existence. Last Christmas is pretty dire too.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
I usually stay at home, although 'home' has shifted to Emma's house for the last couple of years. My parents don't give a toss what we do for Christmas, so I can go where I please!
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Dixons, Currys, Old Joe, Chemical Ali.
20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
It's usually a star, I think. In recent years, it's been a star fashioned by my sister a few years ago, which features the face of her long-deceased hamster in the centre. As far as I know, this much-loved object still adorns the tree to this day, despite persistent attempts by me to set fire to it.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas morning, I'm not fucking German. Although a couple of years ago I didn't wake up 'til 12.30pm, so it was Christmas afternoon.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year?
January!
23. What I love most about Christmas?
Making a point of not watching the Queen's Speech.