Yes, it’s that time of year again where, with just over two thirds of the year gone, we are urged to forget about the remaining third and plan instead for – and I can barely bring myself to write the word – Christmas. You know what I mean, with our bodies barely free of suntan lotion, restaurants, pubs and clubs are urging us to “Book now for Christmas”, “Book your Christmas Party Here!” and “Book now for Christmas, we still have some places left” (Well, you’d bloody well hope so at the start of September, wouldn’t you!).
How sad, depressing and irritating, in equal measure, is all of that? Talk about wishing your life away. It’s as if September, October and November don’t exist. Let’s just skip Autumn and go straight from Summer to Christmas, shall we?

I think it’s about time we showed some resistance and made a determined effort not to even mention the C word until the beginning of December. We should certainly not allow any C advertising or booking of C functions until December 1st. We could even urge our government (or better still the European Parliament, since they don’t appear to have much of a connection with the real world) to pass an Act banning all reference to C until December.

Yes, that might do the trick although once the C season has passed and we reach January 1st we will all be urged to book our summer holidays and forget about the intervening months from January to June! Oh dear, I suppose it’s the price we have to pay for living in this consumer age.