Pre-Christmas findings

I like Christmas, it is time off school and everyone is very happy, this obviously being a good thing. Has not stopped me finding little niggles and annoyances in it all though. I'm not going to rant about the commercialisation of Christmas, my hatred for the use of "Xmas", the horrible bright lights and tacky decorations or having to kiss so many old people I am apparently related to. I could do this but there is not enough space, even online and I wouldn't want to bore you too much.

What really irritates me is the food. People drastically change their eating habits just because it is what one does. Michael McIntyre did a stand up on this very topic and rather annoyingly took a lot of my ideas and made it about ten times funnier, probably due to his camp actions and variety of hilarious voices. As a talentless person I have to write mine down, removing the funny voices and actions, you can add them in yourself if you like. He mentioned how turkey is a less good chicken, sprouts are fat grenades, bread sauce is just ridiculous and how it must all go in a sandwich an hour or so after the main meals.

My focus will be cranberries. Apparently good for the metabolism, cranberry juice is popular amongst dieting women but apart from this, cranberries are not eaten again throughout the entire year, except at Christmas. A lot of the places I like to buy lunch have introduced special edition Christmas sandwiches to take advantage of the change in food preference between mid-November to early-January. These include Turkey and stuffing, chicken and stuffing, bacon and stuffing, brie and cranberry sauce and many more. As a hater of sweet main courses, sandwiches and such I immediately steered clear of the brie and cranberry sauce. Thinking the others would be safe I aimed for chicken and stuffing (I love stuffing, it doesn't get nearly enough credit or air time as it deserves) only to find the bastards had smothered it in cranberry sauce and only written it in the tiny box at the bottom. Thoroughly disappointed I checked the turkey and stuffing, oh cranberries, bacon and stuffing - yeah, cranberries again. Sulkily I decided to go for an all year round sandwich - chicken and bacon, a good, standard meaty sandwich. I picked it up, almost allowing myself a smile, before discovering that they had decided to give it a Christmassy twist and add an extra ingredient. FUCKING CRANBERRIES! Come on Greggs, I can't eat a sausage roll every day, I have my heart to think of.

Being always up to date with the latest fads and excitements I this week signed up to eBay, it is so much fun! The tension, the thrill of competition and the joy of victory (I am aware I sound like a Sontaron but bear with me). What is less fun is the agonising wait in the last minute, desperately hoping the item in question will be yours, thanks to some bloke up north who got too fat for his clothes, a desperate student in need of some cash or a housewife who has cleared the attic. Ebay is in fact the reason I am writing this blog post, I am preparing to snipe on an absolute bargain, it is nerve-racking stuff. I had my first positive feedback the other day, it was beautiful, I was so happy: "Thank you for an easy, pleasant transaction. Excellent buyer. A++++++" What a lovely man!

Have a great, eBay-filled, cranberryless Christmas readers.