{"id":1571,"date":"2009-12-31T21:16:30","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T20:16:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dickonedwards.co.uk\/diary\/?p=1571"},"modified":"2009-12-31T21:17:21","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T20:17:21","slug":"a-one-joke-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/archive\/a-one-joke-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"A One Joke Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"newpics<\/a>
\nView from the flat a few days before Christmas. <\/em><\/p>\n

I pass the Christmas week painlessly enough, cat and flat-sitting on my own in Crouch End. The freedom of having a whole flat to myself including a bathroom (I’ve spent most of my life sharing a shower with other bedsit tenant), plus no worries about heating bills, is reward enough. But Jen also gives me a generous Christmas present to unwrap on the day: a year’s membership to the NFT. It comes packaged with one of the BFI’s DVDs, Richard Lester’s surrealist 60s classic The Bed Sitting Room<\/em>. It’s only now that I realise the apt nature of the title, given the escape from my normal dwelling.<\/p>\n

\"newpics<\/a><\/p>\n

Another present: a glider postcard from Maud Young. Also pictured is Erika Moen’s excellent autobiographical comic book, ‘Dar’<\/a>, a present to myself which arrived in the same post.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

My present to Jen is a copy of William Burroughs’s unlikely essay on his love of cats, The Cat Inside<\/em>. It’s just been republished by Penguin:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Christmas Eve: I realise I need to buy Christmas crackers for the duck feeding ceremony in Waterlow Park the next day, as Ms Silke will be joining me.<\/p>\n

Well, I say need<\/em>… Funny how personal Christmas rituals can creep up on you. Yes, every Christmas Day I feed the ducks in Waterlow Park. And if a friend comes too, we pull crackers by the pond and put on the hats and pass around wine and mince pies right there. It’s just become the thing I do.<\/p>\n

\"newpics<\/a><\/p>\n

Me modelling the Budgens Deluxe Christmas Cracker hat. It’s essentially a hair band made from a red bin liner. <\/em><\/p>\n

Buying Christmas crackers has to be done long before the 24th, which I discover too late. By now all the local supermarkets have sold out, except for Budgens. Which curiously has a tall stack of boxes of 12 ‘deluxe’ crackers (in so much as Budgens does ‘deluxe’) behind the counter. I see other shoppers coming away with a box each, and with big smiles. But curiously, it’s a smile of amusement, not relief.<\/p>\n

‘They’re half price,’ says the cashier. ‘Because they’re faulty.’<\/p>\n

‘Because they don’t make a bang?’<\/p>\n

‘No, they bang fine. But they have all the same joke.’<\/p>\n

This makes my Christmas. I spend the next twenty-four hours musing on the significance of this One Joke To Rule Them All. What can it be?<\/p>\n

Noon the next day, and I pull the crackers with Silke at the duck pond.<\/p>\n

Q. Where do snowmen go to dance?
\nA. To a Snowball.<\/em><\/p>\n

Times twelve.<\/p>\n

\"newpics<\/a><\/p>\n

We then walk to Alexandra Park to feed the ducks there too, given it’s close to Crouch End. After the proper spate of snow a few days before, Christmas Day is only White in patches. The snow has vanished from the pavements and grass. But the duck ponds are still mostly frozen:<\/p>\n

\"newpics<\/a><\/p>\n

We also manage to see some proper Christmas Day snow. The tennis courts in Wood Vale have a thick layer of the white stuff, entirely untouched.<\/p>\n

\"newpics<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

View from the flat a few days before Christmas. I pass the Christmas week painlessly enough, cat and flat-sitting on my own in Crouch End. The freedom of having a whole flat to myself including a bathroom (I’ve spent most of my life sharing a shower with other bedsit tenant), plus no worries about heating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1573,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1571\/revisions\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dickonedwards.com\/diary\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}