You know we need one. Awful Carols etc. And I think the Brisbane City Council may have just gone a tad over the top with the bus decorations. I assume it’s the all Liberal (or is that LNP?) Campbell Newman council majority. Not wanting to be accused of grinchiness (given how awful they’ve been since Campbell got hold of a floor majority) and/or to fend off teh evil political correctness. But I think my fellow public transported citizens also felt this was more than a bit overdoing it…
Holy crap! That is hideous!
I should have taken more photos! The tacky decals on the windows of three kings, etc, and the difficulty you have in not getting covered in glitter and decomposing decorations when in the window seat!!!
Not to mention no one could leave their bags or luggage because of the presence of an ersatz Christmas tree where you do that!
Holy crap just about sums it up!
Mind you the second bus I got tonight was refreshingly undecorated. So I don’t know if there’s some plan to do all the buses over like this or if someone just went mad at the Council depot on this one… the presence of an Australian flag just behind the driver’s seat might give one a clue. Having said that, he wasn’t exactly ho ho ho customer service…
There’s a bus or two floating around Perth like this too. Going down to UWA, which is a bit strange a few weeks after uni season’s finished for the year. It’s a nuisance (one anti-capitalist, agnostic BAH HUMBUG comin’ up), but I suppose it’s better than the metal cages they put in front of the windows to stop people scratching them.
Mark, was the bus driver dressed like Santa Claus? He was when I found myself on the XMAS 199. Honestly, I didn’t mind the interior. The tinsel reflected the glare from the shitty stinking hot day outdoors.
I think it was a personal stunt of the driver – with the unspoken approval of superiors. When I popped on, he was playing Irish music – ok, probably his personal taste, maybe not everyone’s but generally not traditional Christmas fare. If it was official Newman policy, then we’d be forced to deal with Rudolf, Rum-Ta-Tum-Tum, Frosty, and so on. Carols are the real Christmas atrocities[*], but at least I was spared. Or did you have to listen to them? Say it ain’t so!
(* Except for Silent Night. But that always reminds me of the Christmas truce of 1914.)
Bird, if you think that’s bad from Friday, then on Monday and Tuesday, Transperth have their “Santa Train” where Santa will be riding a train on each of the major lines, though I don’t believe the trains will be decorated.
http://www.perth.wa.gov.au/events?date=2008.12&item=1638
Where the hell is that traditional Christmas story about some crumby inner city primary school that has banned the Baby Jesus out of respect for Muslim, Buddhist, Hindus and Jain sensitivities? I know I just canna get meself into the spirit of the whole damn thing until I’ve been totally pissed off by those politically correct bastards who want to spoil the whole damn time of peace and love…and it’s gotta stop.
Good grief!
It’s a horror movie.
Well, yeah that’s a bit overwhelming at best.
I sort of remember a fluff piece from last year on this. The individual bus drivers decorate their buses in the Christmas theme and at some point they park them on Adelaide St. for the public to see and give prizes away for the best decorations.
On the plus side, it’s a bit of fun for our poor bus drivers who spend most of the year dealing with poor roads, unreasonable schedules and irate customers. Anything that improves morale in a place that is reporting 17% turnover couldn’t be considered all bad.
Hmm, your gag against the Liberals reminds me that there hasn’t been a PC vs Christmas post this year. What, have we been largely lucky and not received a swash of news on it, or are we just that sick of covering it?
PinkyOz
This wasn’t a 191 to West End arriving there about seven, was it? My phone’s full of ve-e-e-ery similar pics! What it is is there’s a competition each year and the staff of each bus depot each decorates a bus, trying to surpass the others’ tackiness. You haven’t ever seen one before?When it first was done (probably five years or more ago) it was more fun for the drivers, but I quite enjoy finding it way onto one each silly season still, if just for the looks of people when they get on. Plus it’s just so hideous! Brilliant! It’s got contemporary Christmas down pat! Though I almost got decapitated by a swinging wreath up the back last night…
“*seemed* more fun for the drivers”, I of course mean.
Whoa. That’s a bit excessive. Perth has its usual crap decos, but was in NZ recently. Timaru had a santas head on the wall of a gun shop, apparently without irony near to other dead animal heads
http://theworstofperth.com/2008/11/27/santa-head-shot-worst-on-tour-new-zealand/
And there’s a 3 story plus high leering Santa in Aukland with a mechanical finger. Looks like a malevolent proctologist.
http://theworstofperth.com/2008/12/11/xmas-perth-vs-new-zealand/
No no no no no no no. You’re just listening to the wrong ones, sung by the wrong people. Twelve-year-olds in cerise satin doing the horrible melismatic yowling thing with Rudolf and Frosty on the teeve are not “carols”. Take one good choir (say Kings College Cambridge) or smaller vocal ensemble (say the Tallis Scholars) and listen to any one or more of O Holy Night, The Coventry Carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem or The Shepherd’s Farewell. It’s a whole other experience.
Maybe PC was one of those things manyfactured by Ratty and now he’s gone, it has disappeared. I won’t notice any Xmas atrocities in Armidale till I go up town on Xmas Eve. But then again I generally find the whole season an atrocity.
A couple of years ago somebody stole the baby Jesus from a nativity scene they display in the main park here. It was eventually returned and now the glass display case is apparently reinforced by some kind of security screen. I saay apparently, because I’ve never bothered to go up to look.
I have two words for you: Christmas Street.
One of my cow-orkers lives in a street here in Armidale that goes OTT with christmas lights each year and puts a collection bin at the end of the street. You’re supposed to drive slowly up and down saying “oooh” and “aaaah” and throw money in the bin at the end. Apparently they make a couple of grand every year for charity.
Now, it’s not the good-hearted charity thing that is horrific – it’s the concept. Apparently, people who live in Christmas street (not it’s actual name) who don’t put up lights, suddenly find their house decorated with them. There is a christmas street Stalin living down there somewhere with a staple gun, strings of lights and a bad attitude.
Here ya go, J2.
Atheist placard atrocity in Washington State!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’rywhere you go;
Wingnut pundits at FoxNews share with all their views
On Santa Claus, hero of the Culture Wars.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Fundo creches galore
But the prettiest sight to see is the manger that will be
On ev’ry corner in Lahore.
A ticket to the Rapture and finally the capture
Of evil old OBL;
Then all will be well. And would’t it be swell
To watch the liberals burn in hell?
The religious Right can hardly wait for Culture Wars again.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Ev’rywhere you go.
There’s a scene of medieval hell etched on the Liberty Bell
(It looks just like Guantanamo.)
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas;
Soon we Wingnuts will start,
To tear Obama apart. Now that we own Christmas
All liberals will lose heart.
You had me really frightened there for a minute.
Also, ‘manyfactured’: Typo of the Month.
O the humanity.
Joe2, LOL – I read some good articles somewhere on teh internets about all the urban myths going around about peoples’ Xmases being ruined by policical correctness ™ , I must have a dig around my “links saved for blogging but didn’t have the time” repository.
I work in retail at Kmart and a few weeks back I worked Thursday, Friday and the Weekend. Every day they played the same Christmas carols on loop every hour… I worked over 20 hours through those 4 days…
I loathe Christmas carols…
But anyway I think that bus is hideous!
An what about the latest RACQ ad? A woman is waiting in her (assumedly broken down) car on a darkened road. She’s getting nervous; she’s tried to ring home, but there’s no answer. Suddenly, a leering Santa appears outside her window – giving her a scare. Take the membership form… OR ELSE.
Well yeah CountArach. That’d pretty much make anyone hate Christmas carols.
I do agree with PC though. There’s a few saccharine renditions of Christmas carols that surfaced in the 20th century and insinuated themselves into the popular consciousness. ‘White Christmas’, ‘Frosty the Snowman’, ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Jingle Bell Rock’, etc. They’re the least of what is a very old and significant musical tradition. Some of the other ones PC listed count as some of the most beautiful songs in existence.
Although it’s cheesy and easily parodied, I quite like ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. A very highly-developed and amusing type of ‘catalogue’ song, and always fun to sing.
I agree with PC: carols can be wonderful.
And THEREFORE a strong contender for the prize for consistently bloody terrible Christmas Atrocity must go to the televised “Carols by Candlelight” from the Myer Music Bowl; replete with bad singing, crap MC, off key singing, rearrangements of traditional songs as “night club” fare, promotion of talentless twerps, TV cross-promotion, very bad soloists, did I mention the out of tune singers? etc etc. ONLY baby Jesus could forgive them.
Anyone who’s been to a community outdoor carols event, whether in a country town or a suburb or to a well presented school or church event, will have no difficulty “comparing and contrasting”.
Emetic TV.
There’s a house around the corner form here (so, in a very very quiet outer-suburban backstreet) which is fully rigged with lights that are programmed to flash dramatically in time with a sort of death metal rendering of Fur Elise & Eine Kleine Nachtmusic. You have to tune your car radio to 107.9FM to hear the soundtrack. Tis truly awe-inspiring.
I haven’t been in the CBD for a week or so, but the Sydney decorations are generally quite good. Clover has cranked them up a bit since getting savaged by the Telegraph a few years ago for not having enough, but it’s all still in good taste. The theme for the last few years has been ‘An Australian Christmas’, which basically means that the street banners depict possums and cockatoos and so on rather than mangers, babies and camels. At night they’re also projecting images with the same theme onto Town Hall and the old buildings on Macquarie Street, which I think look quite nice. (Some pictures from last year here.)
On Australian Christmases, I also have a soft spot for the carol whose name I can never remember that starts like this
The north wind is tossing the leaves
The red dust is over the town
The sparrows are under the eaves
And the grass in the paddock is brown
– possibly because at the time when we used to sing it in primary school, all we had to do was look out the window and we could see all of those things outside. Also, there’s some lovely ‘the minor fall, the major lift’ stuff happening in the tune.
(I just Googled it to make sure I had the words right and one blogger had written about those same four lines saying ‘Stuff the rest of the carol, that’s the bit I really like.’
Amen to that. So to speak.)
One of my neighbours institutes counter-discourse: http://bitemylatte.blogspot.com/2008/12/seasonal-cheer.html
I think in years past the buses have been an informal whim of individual drivers, but this year BCC transport had a competition for the best decorated bus, judged by Campbell himself. It was on the news earlier this week.
Thanks, Darryl. I don’t watch the news at this time of year.
And Becc – yep, it was a 199 on the New Farm to West End run.
But what about festivus, the festival for the rest of us? I’ve erected my pole, let the feats of strength begin!
?? erected my pole ?? Bacchus ?? Saturnalia ?? strictly non-celibate ??
Frank Costanza
Chile pepper Xmas lights.
Bloody red and green things that look like chile peppers that you hang on the front verandah . Two lots of them, one of which flashes on and off, the other doesn’t, I dunno why or why not.
Just put them up, they arrived today at the post office by special post. I didn’t know we [sic] had ordered them.
Next to the flashing neon blue lights that look like a cop car has pulled up alongside.
Next to the white lights that hang as festoons.
All on the front verandah.
Which faces…..nobody.
Our nearest neighbour in that direction is kms away.
The dog is puzzled. I am puzzled.
And thats not talking about the lights on the back verandah
And the nearest neighbour in that direction in that direction is, I dunno, maybe 30-40 kms.
Why do we do this I ask?
“Its Xmas!”
Oh.
PC,
Didn’t mean to scare you. Anyway, you get what I mean.
DR,
Ain’t my street. No. 43 used to put a Santa’s sleigh on the roof, but those tenants have moved. I can never understand this urge of the masses to drive round streets at this time of year going ooh-ah at pretty lights, etc. I was subjected to it as a child (c. age 12) and even back then in 1957 I was bored shitless. But then again, we didn’t have a TV.
The tree-ferns in green gullies sway;
The cool stream flows silently by;
The joy bells are greeting the day,
And the chimes are adrift in the sky,
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ-Child the Heavenly King.
But I quite liked,
Across the plains one Christmas Night
Three drovers riding blithe and gay
Looked up and saw a starry sight
More radiant than the milky way
And on their hearts such wonder fell
They sang with joy noel, noel
No elle no elle no elle.
I used to busk with my flute at Xmas and Australian Christmas carols were my spessciality. Those tunes that were played over and over and over again during my toddlerhood are the ones I can play most easily by ear. They are well and truly ‘in there’.
Its a pretty safe bet that if I meet someone over 13 or under 60 who wears Xmas jewelery or hand made t-shirts we ain’t gonna have a lot in common.
Anyone dissing White Christmas will have to reckon with my Rich Baritone™.
Inner Melbourne is surprisingly tasteful and restrained this year. “Bah humbug” has barely got a look in.
Old Lady at the Don Bosco op-shop today saw me vacillating about a set of old golf clubs in a gorgeous leather shoulder bag, priced at $20.
O.L.: “You can a-have a-them for fifteen a-dolla”
Me: “It’s not the price that’s the problem, I just dunno where I’m gonna keep them”
O.L.: “Ten a-dolla?”
Me: “Fifteen it is!”
Then she threw in the Heart album under my arm ($2), charged me 1/2 price for the set of 6 hand-painted smoked-glass 60s shot glasses (60c instead of $1.20), then refused my offer of $20 for the lot.
Now THAT’S how you do Xmas spirit. Gladdened my godless heart it did.
FDB
first you try to pay the Op Shop Signora more than you need to
then you tell us
You’re a hard, hard man on mean streets.
Well, I don’t ooh-ah so much as shouting “Santa died for you!” out the window at the really obscenely over-the-top displays…
She probably thought you were homeless.
Perhaps now we can have the Atheist slogan inside the buses instead of outside, and tart it up a bit, it should then be approved.
Saturnalia was yesterday!!! (the 17th)
PatrickB. You forgot the Airing Of Grievances.
The Aluminium Pole is of significance to the Festivus celebrant because of it’s very high strength-to-weight ratio and also has the property of being very low maintenance. Tinsel is “distracting”.
And I’ve yet to “rain blows” upon a fellow shopper. But I do what I can to maintain the Festivus spirit.
“Although it’s cheesy and easily parodied, I quite like ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’. A very highly-developed and amusing type of ‘catalogue’ song, and always fun to sing.”
Well, it’s okay if it’s done right.
I was recently in a cab and the version playing was more like a dirge than a christmas carol. It only got as far as the 6th day before it had me asking the cabbie to change the station because I couldn’t bear it any longer.
“The Aluminium Pole is of significance to the Festivus celebrant”
Maybe that explains why the two new townhouses next door to me each have a huge metal telegraph poles in the front yard for the electrical connection.
Whoooeeee!
You shoulda heard the airing of grievances around these parts justaminnadago. The paint is fairly peelin’!
Mind you, I really didn’t have anywhere to put those golf clubs. If only I could just sool the Lady Friend on the Kindly Old Lady from the op-shop and let them duke it out.
Also, I need a haircut. This gravatar used to look like a photo of me.
“She probably thought you were homeless”
Hey watchit! I was hardly drunk at all, and showered only yesterday.
At last someone says it. Christmas is an Atrocity. Thanks.
“At last someone says it. Christmas is an atrocity.”
No it isn’t.
Merry Christmas!
Lovely understatement JPZ.
“Hey watchit! I was hardly drunk at all, and showered only yesterday.”
I went out last night with Mark to the Griffith Review Xmas party and had far too much to drink. No surprises there. After dashing away from the event to buy our 10 yo a bike for chrissy, hubby and I dared each other to ride the display bikes at speed around the Kmart aisles. I have clear recollection of a 16 yo shop boy asking us to “please get off the bikes and take them back to their section’ but not of losing my handbag in the sound and vision section until they called me this morning to ask if indeed it was my handbag they had found.
Peace on earth y’all.
Each to his or her own, though it does tick me off when a local primary school has an “Xmas Festival”, and gets the kids doing anything but. They had funny singing monster skits, rock star skits etc etc. Nothing about Xmas.
So why not just call it an end of year party? Christmas isn’t actually compulsory, so there is no need to corrupt it. Some of think that an authentic Christmas is part of who we are.
Come to Lobethal here in SA.
http://www.lightsoflobethal.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=32
http://www.southaustralia.com/9002142.aspx
Caroline@34:
That’s Brokeback Plains, I gather.
As they used to sing at Countdown Xmas parties
“Deck the halls with fucks of Molly.”
Now here’s a good seasonal mondegreen.
To the tune of ‘Silent Night’
“Stabbing fight, hold the knife.
Hold her cake up, up in sight
Some dumb virgin’s margarine child
Covered in lint and feeling wild
Generally squeeze some peas”
That’s about as much as I can remember from my tweenies at school concerts before my voice broke…followed by my mind.
I still remember a couple of Walt Kelly- Pogo misreadings. I always liked
“Deck the floor with Boston Charlie.”
The other one that stays in mind (not all of it unfortunately) was,
“on the first day of Christmas McTrulove said to me … A parsnip and a pair of threes.”
“Some of think that an authentic Christmas is part of who we are.”
And no one has any plans to take that away from youse, sweetheart.
Now, off to bed, 6 sleeps till holy Santa visits.
I watched this video repeatedly, in spite of the fact that I had to listen to
‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’ over and over again. It was worth it.
http://www.maniacworld.com/dog-having-a-blast-in-the-snow.html
“Santa Claus Conquers The Martians” — annual screening on Community TV.
Need I say more?
My favourite Christmas mondegreen is still ‘Olive, the other reindeer, used to laugh and call him names.’
Wrong season, but “Gladly, the cross-eyed Bear” had a certain something
“Santa Claus conquers the martians” is (I think) in the public domain.
You can watch it at google video here if you don’t get community TV.
Alternatively, it’s available from public domain torrents.
Okay, so it’s not a carol. But I really did think that’s how the Kiss song went until pretty recently. And my mum’s name is Carol, so I’m going to go ahead and give myself a free pass on this one.
Had teh office Christmas party today, a lunchtime river cruise from Perth to Fremantle and back. All good fun, and freely flowing wine and beer.
Afterwards, took the CAT bus from Barrack St Jetty to the Railway station to catch the train home. Some very drunk women on the CAT bus, trying to latch onto any male with a heartbeat – when I gently put one off by saying my husband wouldn’t like it, I was adopted into the group as teh honorary gay guy in the phalanx* of females.
Kind of scary.
(* what is the collective noun for a group of extremely intoxicated mid-20s women on the prowl for men?)
A smooch of Sheilas?
We just took our 4yo along the Boulevard in Ivanhoe, Melbourne. Famous for its Xmas lights on all the houses.
She just about passed out from all the excitement. Being out at night is more fun than a barrel of monkeys for starters, and then pretty coloured lights!
phalanx is good: military, marauding overtones; with a touch of Desiree Flange
Sorry folks – the Brisbane bus decoration thing has been going on for years (usually as overdone as the 2008 version). I can remember buses on the 174 Garden City route being decorated in the late 90’s when I lived at Mt Gravatt. Apparently the comp was running even then.
I really don’t think you can blame Can’t do Campbell for the decorations – or the “Merry Christmas from Brisbane Transport” destination sign common at this time of the year.
Ah, the Boulevard: the Paris end of Ivanhoe. Fond memories, LE.
You want atrocity ?
Yes, you hafta: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXAzAgb4pA
SC: “She probably thought you (FDB) were homeless” …
A set of golf-clubs, 6 shot glasses, and a Heart album… just the right gear for a great time with the fellow accomodationally-challenged souls down at the local Vinnies hostel after the traditional Christmas day slap-up treat. The scones they serve there would prolly maintain in-flight integrity after being teeed off with a 2 wood with.
Quog: what is the collective noun for a group of extremely intoxicated mid-20s women on the prowl for men…LE: A smooch of Sheilas?
You’d be playing the game of venery then: to notice a group of something and give it a double meaning description. In ye olde days before the gui, in lists, and on bulletin boards, and probably before, there was a long standing, highly elaborated one for the genus: “essay of trollops”, “chorus of strumpets”, “firm of solicitors”, etc. Mine contribution: “a feather of oars”.
Quite a large inflated Santa Claus was stuck up above a shop in Corinda a few weeks ago. One of the storms had him slumping a bit, maybe resting up before the Christmas rush. Now he’s utterly deflated: quite a grotesque sight.
If Christmas is for children I don’t know what trauma is being caused by this.