I spent half of last night watching Mel scribbling down tips for cooking a turkey from first, Jamie Oliver’s Cockney Christmas Cooking C-C-C-programme (wasn’t called that but he does enunciate somewhat abysmally and if you don’t add the ‘cockney’ as some kind of intention then he just becomes a little street-urchin who can cook), followed by Nigella’s ultra-sensual breast-fest (hers and the turkey’s) involving lots of finger-licking, purring, chocolate sauce and sex toys. Where cookery meets soft-core porn. No problem with that.

Because we’re making Christmas dinner today. Because its fucking Christmas, innit. And in 28 years of the most wonderfully happy marriage (mine), or 28 years of miserable slavery (hers), this is our first. We’re never here at Christmas. Its our holiday time. When I remove the shackles which normally tie Mrs Conway to the oven and washing machine and release her into the wild (Heathrow) from where we go and find winter sunshine. Otherwise she gets depressed in all that dark, cold winter wank.

But this year our trip, to South America, starts on the 29th due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’ (Air Miles flights) and thus, here I am, on Christmas morning looking out on a bright, sunny London for the first time in decades and trying to decide whether to stuff a sodding turkey, and if so, how many minutes per kilo will that require before the ‘resting time’ after cooking? Resting time? Like the bird is knackered and needs a nap? Its fucking dead? How tired can it be??

After Jamie and Nigella (ohhhhh, Nigella…) I watched Top of the Pops, 1979 Christmas Special. Or ‘not very special’ as you realise as soon as Bony M hit the screen.

I loved TOTP, as did every kid, every teen, every young adult, from 1964 to 2006 when we’d all grown up and realised it was absolute shit presented by child molesting perverts and featuring the great and the rubbish who were not allowed to perform live. How was that ever allowed to happen? I mean, for Brotherhood of Man and Gary (paedo) Glitter, its what you’d expect, and more than you need. But at times when the greats, the Marc Bolans and David Bowies, the Who, Stones, Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, even the Beatles, all had to mime. As a ‘concession’ the BBC let them pre-record a backing track specially for the programme, but really, what bollox. Which is why Rod Steward performed Maggie May whilst kicking a football with John Peel pretending to play the mandolin. When Simon Le Bon’s mike flew offstage at the start of a song he just shrugged his shoulders and mimed into the mike-stand. And when they gave a live mike to Kurt Cobain he swore and told everyone to take drugs. Bless him.

So why did we watch it? Why bother??

Because of the ‘dancers’. Not just any dancers but consistently the worst, most arrhythmic, terrible dancers in the world. They auditioned them, Pans People and Legs & Co, specifically for their ability to dance like Peter Crouch who hadn’t even been born yet, or Stephen Hawking, and for their legs.

And it worked.

Happy Christmas, again

A xxxx