Don't you love this time of the year- the telly adverts

Don't you love this time of the year- the telly adverts.

Hey don't you love this time of the year? We're now a couple of weeks away from that big festival where everybody gets wonderfully drunk, eats to bursting point and then regrets it all on New Year's Day. It's almost Christmas and the goose may be getting fat. The invitations have been sent out to distant uncles, aunties and cousins who you never see at all apart from Christmas and there is a a kind of warm anticipation of the imminent festivities.

But year after year. you can almost put your mortgage on it. Mum begins to dread the whole rigmarole of buying the turkey in September. Sorry that's a complete exaggeration. I meant August or maybe the middle of June because as we know the winter sales in London begin on a balmy day in June when the hyacinths, roses and begonias are in full bloom. But here we are in December and, it is, admittedly exciting.

In the middle of Trafalgar Square the yearly Christmas tree is here, towering into the early evening night sky with a considerable amount of pride. The tree comes from Norway which is full of pine forests and is renowned for its Christmas trees. Or maybe there aren't any pine forests in Norway and it's just an urban myth, Suffice it to say that the tree is a gift from the Norwegians after the War and we shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I would imagine that the roast chestnut brazier outside the British Museum will once again park itself outside the museum, one of the many traditional constants in Britain. Tourists love the roast chestnuts because they believe, quite rightly, that Britain does Christmas with a certain amount of flair.

The Christmas decorations are now up in Regent Street and they do look impressive and visually satisfying. Years ago the decorations were, quite frankly pathetic and hardly visible. But this year London has pushed the boat out. There is a vivid and spectacular brightness about the stars draped across Regent Street. I've always been fascinated by Regent Street because there is something charmingly old fashioned and antiquated about it. And when the Christmas lights go on you feel that privately even Hamley's toy shop jumps for joy, a welcoming smile on its face.

Then shortly Oxford Street switch on the lights and we all get very jolly, festive and ho- ho- ho because that's what we've always done since time immemorial. The office party season is well under way, the dancing gets a bit too personal at times and the filing cabinets are alive with the sound of kissing under the mistletoe. Then everybody drinks mulled wine by the gallon  accompanied with several shots of Jack Daniels whisky, a hundred cans of Foster's lager and then embarrassingly strangle the life out of Slade's 'Here it is Merry Christmas' Or maybe not.

It is a time of unashamed celebration and rejoicing, for thinking back over the year and trying to put all of the year into some kind of sober perspective. We all reflect on the news of the year before flopping languidly back into our sofas and armchairs with a silly paper hat on our head. We then slump in front of the telly, slowly digesting the superabundance of food we've just consumed and gradually nodding off in front of a Bond film we must have seen a million times if not 999,999 times before. You know the one. The one where Roger Moore goes ski-ing surrounded by some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. And that's just the opening credits.

Then Uncle Sid and Aunt Maggie start snoring, the children complain about their presents because the batteries only lasted five minutes and they're desperately bored. Too much consumerism and materialism I hear you cry. You're right. Shortly after the War and the 1950s  our parents told us that because of severe rationing we had to be content with an orange or a pencil. Britain had to be grateful for small mercies so the kids were gently reprimanded with a sharp ticking off.

There is a wonderful laziness and lethargy about Christmas. The roads and streets are silenced, the cars turn off their engines and everybody gets very cosy and sentimental. Nobody over exerts themselves because most of the shops and department stores are shut for at least six months. Or maybe five. It's hard to tell. Oh what a wit I'm not. After several hundred helpings of turkeys, roast potatoes and brussel sprouts we then move onto the thousand boxes of chocolates, mince pies, chocolate biscuits. Truly Christmas is the only time when we stuff ourselves silly and then pretend that nothing happened.

But it's that period before Christmas that tickles my funny bone. On the commercial ITV, some of our most reputable advertisers subject the nation to an incessant bombardment of soppy adverts and outlandish Christmas campaigns. You can almost set your clock by it. Every year it's the same old thing, the same palaver, the same old warm, glowingly effusive Christmas messages from our friendly supermarkets or department stores.

Before their sad departure from the high streets, Woolworth's or Woolies would embrace the whole of Britain with their perennial slogan. That's the Wonder of Woolies was  Woolworth's lovely old jingle and the whole package would come with skipping children, parents with red coats and scarves and then Santa Claus in that conventional dress of red coat and big white beard.

Woolworth's was always the housewives favourites. How we sung along to that tuneful refrain, whistling along the road because everybody knew Christmas was just around the corner. Then Santa hid discreetly behind the wardrobe ready to leap out on that auspicious day. But Woolies kept giving with those gold boxes tied with ribbons and if the children woke up bright and early, they'd wake up to find a gigantic stack of presents. Woolworth's gave us the pick and mix combination of sweets, broken biscuits and a modest record department. At Christmas though all the cliches came tumbling indiscriminately out of the cupboard. We all felt that Woolworth's was the finest shop in the world and we were right to think so.

Then there was that brilliant Coca Cola advert. Now that was the stylish Christmas telly campaign. It seems an odds on favourite to win any prestigious advertising award. What an advert. It's a real gem. If any advert accurately encapsulated the spirit of Christmas then Coca Cola certainly is it. From that gleaming red lorry to the brightly glowing Coca Cola sign, this is the one of the most formidable of all advertisements ever to hit our TV screens.

Every Christmas a huge, lumbering lorry wound its way round the neighbourhoods and streets of Britain determined to promote its flagship product. Coca Cola represented the most teasing of all temptations, the guiltiest of pleasures. It was stupendously sweet, a sugar rush from paradise and then a marvellously refreshing drink on a hot summer's day. But although we'd never admit it we knew that Coca Cola was bad for you and your teeth. So although you fell for the excessive Christmas hype you knew that Coca Cola would rot your teeth. What a horrible revelation.

Then there were the procession of adverts for whisky, Cockburns whisky as promoted by some Russian submarine commander, blandishments for brandy, boxes of Celebrations chocolates, chunky turkeys, Christmas plum pudding with a flame, families gathering under box laden Christmas trees and the children pulling crackers. Then we all sing Christmas carols around the piano, sit around the dining room table before indulging  in the familiar board games of Monopoly and Scrabble.

So there you have it. It's almost Christmas and not forgetting Chanukah because we love Chanukah. This year Chanukah coincides with the Christmas Eve. We should wrap them both up and bottle them for posterity. Have a good one everybody.


Incidentally does anybody know of a children's book publishers who don't cost a penny for publishing and printing, Enjoy your weekend everybody.