Noddy and big tears

It’s that time of the year when you can barely venture out – never mind to the supermarket – without being assailed by Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody, featuring the buzz-saw vocals of Noddy Holder. Slade are touring this Christmas, and doubtless churning out the song, but Noddy’s not there. He and his co-writer Jim Lea fell out with the other two galoots because they were making a quarter of a million each a year in royalties from the song and the others were getting nowt. You can see that might be a source of contumely.

Then there’s Fairytale Of New York, featuring Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl (whom I knew, but that’s another tale). It features the line “The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay”, but sadly the NYPD doesn’t have a choir. It does have, however, an Irish pipe band, which features in the video. Except they didn’t know Galway Bay so they played The Mickey Mouse Club March which was slowed down to fit the beat. The song didn’t go to number one when it was released in 1987, pipped by the Pet Shop Boys’ Always On My Mind MacGowan commented: “We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine.”

All of which is a lengthy preamble to Christmas songs which surely suit the present mood. There’s “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Brexit”, “Free Trade Deal Of New York”, “O Come All Ye Hateful”, and, obviously, “All I Want For Christmas Is EU”. But, best of all, “White Christmas” definitely sums it up.

Brillifold

If you call your band Outstandifold And The Wettygrippers you better back it up by being good. A few weeks back I wrote about them and wondered if they were. Well, they are. They sent me a CD and my stereo system is still trembling. Difficult to describe their music, it’s like – and I mean this in the most positive way – being slapped round the head with a Stratocaster. Or revived by a decibel-busting aural defibrillator.

I know nothing about them. They could be bank clerks from Esher for all I know, but somehow I reckon they aren’t. Stanley Unwin (from whose gobbledegook they take their name) would have something to say about them, although it obviously wouldn’t make sense, and after listening mine are pretty scrambled too, in a pleasant way.

Beam me up

According to a survey of 2,500 students by a training company, a host of degree courses – such as in stand-up comedy – are a bad joke. Perfumery? They turned up their noses. Surf science? Board silly. One-third of those surveyed were also completely dismissive of one run by Edinburgh University in parapsychology.

The uni, however, does go to great length to warn potential students that the course “will not teach you how to be psychic, read minds, be a ghost hunter or communicate with the deceased”. I would tell you what it does teach but my telepathic zone seems to have shut down.

What a ripper

Forty-two years ago last week the Australian prime minister Harold Holt went swimming, becoming the third Aussie PM to die in power. He was last seen being carried out to sea on a riptide, drowning rather than waving. Although, in the manner of these odd matters, various conspiracies developed, my favourite of which is that it was a staged disappearance and he was picked up by a submarine and taken to China. To commemorate his death the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre was established in Melbourne. Do the Aussies do irony?

Science bunkum

Unreliable science 1: Two separate and apparently contradictory medical reports came out last week about longevity. One had it that you’re at less risk of a heart attack if you have plenty of sleep, while the other claimed pensioners live 14 years longer if they go to clubbing! Perhaps they meant lunch clubbing?

Some tin wrong

At this time of year I like to bring out the tin of Quality Street which has been under lock and key for a twelvemonth, and offer a sweetie –well a coconut one because I don’t like those. I have had the tin for a while, it’s true, but I was a little taken aback to read that shrinkflation has set in and that the average weight of a tin is now 650g, about 40% smaller than a decade ago. Mine is 1.2kg, which apparently means it’s pre-2009. I won’t let on, of course.

Gender benders

I can hardly wait for January and the annual United Arab Emirates gender balance awards. The UAE is leading the Gulf nations in equality. Okay, husbands can still beat their wives, within limits of course, and men have priority in legal matters, like marriage, divorce and the custody of kids. But, hey, at least they are trying.

Step forward the man responsible for it, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who owns more racehorses than I’ve had punts. He also has at least six wives, the latest, aka youngest, is Haya, who fled to London with her two young kids last year, allegedly in fear of her life, and went to court to seek a non-molestation order against him. She was back in court 10 days ago but the judgment has not yet been given. The sheikh, who fancies himself as a bit of a poet, penned an ode about it: “You no longer have a place with me,” he declared. “I don’t care if you live or die.” Deathless prose?

But back to the awards. Last year, the top one went to the deputy prime minister and minister of the interior, Lt Gen Sheikh Saif bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who was recognised as the “best personality supporting gender balance”. But he’s a man, you notice. Yes, and all the other awards went gender-unbalanced. The recipients were all male – or as the UAE put it, they “happened to be entities led by men”. I’m glad that’s clear.