Old King Cola

Seasons greetings!

That's right; I do like this time of the year.

Folk will of course grumble that it's too early to talk about Christmas until whichever point they feel the festive season should suddenly go from being a dirty secret to a full blown tinsel-fest.  To those people I say 'fair enough but should there then be a referendum on when it should be then allowed to mention Santa and mangers and such.

For some the start of the twelve days is where it's at; for others the onset of December is the kick-off:- Frankly, I'd happily wish anyone a merry 'un if they were to approach me with a 'ho-ho-ho' any time in the weeks building up to the big day.  There is however a contingent of the populace out there with a somewhat disturbing marker of Yuletide's approach.

The first appearance of a winter themed Coca-Cola ad.

One has to question a series of motivations in this instance.  Firstly, why a commercial?  Not only the very thing that tends to be much maligned at any other time but also just that:- A company's showcase to shift more of its product.  Secondly, why Coca-Cola of all things?  Whatever one might think of the slew of advertisements from the supermarkets and dubious hamper merchants, at least they tend to be pushing Christmas specific wares.

What suddenly makes this one beverage, made primarily of carbonated water, sucrose, corn syrup, caffine, phosphoric acid and food colouring representative of the advent of many a religions figurehead is certainly up for debate.


I prefer Pepsi anyways.

Merry Christmas, wHOres, wHOres, wHOres.

Okay.

Bear with me on this one.

I know every year every man woman and child bemoans the fact that the advertisers and retail outlets start pushing festivals and celebrations way earlier then any sensible person deems necessary.  Normally I tent to avoid commenting on this as it seems tired and futile but this year I feel the need.  What justifies it this time around?

Maths.

At my place of work, one will often find various periodicals lying around the canteen (a generous term for a Portakabin with some plastic institution style chairs crammed in) and amongst the grotty gossip mags I found a copy of The Sun newspaper from the start of June.  Quickly skimming through the pages, I happened upon a feature written with a sense of urgency not present in the reports about war and poverty.

'Don't get caught out!  These will be THE toys your child NEEDS this Christmas!'

This was the flavour of the article which went on to prostitute itself with pictures of Transformers figures and furry toys that somehow look worse than when I was a kid - many moons ago - despite what surely should be a vastly improved manufacturing technique.

Now bear in mind the date:- It was the first of June people!  THE FIRST OF COCKING JUNE!  This means that 'they' have officially started pushing the next Christmas whilst we are still closer to the last one.

People let it slide when the festive season seemingly took over December.  They let it slide when it was at the back of people's minds during Guy Fawkes Night and Halloween.  Surely now given that we're still nearer the 25th of December 2010 than the 2011 version it is time to take Christmas back and say, 'shut your fat pie-hole Big Business!  You've stretched it now and it has been all ripped apart by your gluttony like a fat man's stomach lining and that probably is not a good thing.'