Hello again.
Many thanks to those of you who wrote in to congratulate me on my self-portrait. Unlike Mr.Holdsworthy my art is not “an armless child…”. I would have to say that my art is more like the body of a size 20 woman forcibly constrained into the clothes and underwear of a size 10. Unpleasant. Anyway, aside from that there is only one real topic for discussion this month. Christmas. And for any of you who may be reading this thinking ” If he has a go at Christmas…”, dont worry. I love Christmas. “Back To The Future”, Mars bars and cocaine. Fantastic. We’ve got our Christmas tree and now it’s just a case of choosing which poorly produced, offensively gaudy, novelty Santa to make the centre of our display. I’ll just ask the man at Moneywise which product is most child-labour intensive and watch his face light up as he explains that ALL his products are made by children. As if we didn’t know already.
No…I’m ecstatic. Because it’s not the receiving you see…it’s the giving. Or is that concept no different from the size 20 woman in the size 10 clothes…an obscene lie. Yes. It is a lie. Christmas is a time for valuation and approximation. The time when you find out exactly what your friends and family think your worth, and the time when you tell them the same thing. The time of year when you can put an exact figure on how much you think everyone is worth. And what a refreshing and clarifying feeling that is.
But there is confusion to the whole process, and I can make it easier with my patented “Christmas Friend Valuation Schematic” below. There is a drop off zone at the bottom of the chart, which indicates those people with whom it may be acceptable to be friends for most of the year, but who are so much dead weight in this time of the baby Jesus.
I hope this is valuable to those of you who have trouble seeing the real spirit of Christmas. Someone once told me ” You can have too many friends.” At Christmas time any friends are too many friends.
(Simon would like like for Christmas a picture of Catherine Zeta Jones’ head on a spike, the other end of which is shoved up Michael Douglas’ arse. Or Posh and Becks. OK magazine ? Either will do. )