Christmas Cards - Huh?

I was looking at Kitty yesterday and wondering why people keep cats (or rather, why cats keep humans). Dogs I can understand; we have a long symbiotic relationship with them as hunting aids – but cats? A handy set of spare guitar strings, perhaps? A potential pair of fur slippers?

Had one of those awfully twee, grossly sentimental, animated, emailed Christmas cards by the likes of Jacquie Lawson yet? Hate the bloody things – they’re as personal as a call from an Indian call centre. They were a novelty when first introduced, but now are the preserve of camp, gay males (Richard, my friend who died the other week, was an inveterate e-carder) and those who forgot to send you a card with their usual batch to their really close friends.

Obviously the inconvenience of holding a pen in your paw and actually writing something is too much for some – or perhaps they just can’t spell well. Even faxing your cards en mass is superior to an e-card - at least the recipient has something to put on the mantelpiece. On receiving one of these animated monstrosities you somehow feel you were an afterthought.


Getting one of these in between the hoax virus messages, the ones selling you some priapic aid, the ones telling you that while your cv was of interest you can piss off and the advert emails telling you you’ll never find a more comfortable bra than the one they are hawking, is not conducive to starting the day off on a positive note.

Not only that, but they put the lives of our boys in Afghanistan, Iraq and Huddersfield in danger.

I’m not too enamoured of the horribly self-indulgent family cards delineating what the entire family has been doing for the last 12 months either. You know the ones – listing the holidays in Barbados and St Moritz, along with how well Titus and Jocasta are performing at boarding school and the latest purchase from the AGA shop – all topped off with a sickeningly smug family photo of them all grinning at you from the shores of Lake Como.

You’ll be pleased to know I’m taking a rest and not blogging over the weekend.