fucking materialistic bullshit

the holiday season has never meant as much to me because a)i'm not part of a big close-knit family, b) not very well-off so spending on each other was never that gratuitous yet thats whats rammed down our throats so often, and c) only one Christmas so far in my life have I actually been in a career-type job that means something so that i can enjoy the break contentedly in that respect. so yeh i've lost that childlike fascination and love of the whole Christmas thing (it never snows here anyway, and whereas i once used to delight in the day's TV schedule now i shudder at the listings), but i'm not too sad about that - it doesnt mean i cant just enjoy seeing friends and family and soaking up the whole 'end of year' thing. i'll be buying some gifts for only a handful of people who are important to me (tho i have no idea what yet cos i'm crap at that) - the massive commercial drive at this time of year does just make me more cynical and reluctant to partake in the madness though...

2. Give the money to the poor

I'm currently happy about buying presents because I have more disposable income than the people I'll be buying for - it's a way of getting people you care for something they'd like but wouldn't feel able to get themselves without a measure of guilt. I'm also giving to charity, and it's a measure of my residual discomfort with the Christmas consumption thing that I feel the need to mention that I suppose.

I think the social pressure to buy is there but hardly irresistible. One of the things about present-giving is that it's still a private, not a public ritual - if you and your family give each other home-made cards or nothing at all nobody else will know about it. So the pressure is of a quite different kind from the materialist pressure to have the right clothes/a good car/latest phone etc.

Britain gets reposessed... but by WHOM is the big, scary question?

Expensive luxury item = BORROWED from housemate. So there.

Britain gets reposessed... but by WHAM is the big, scary question?

To me this seems like a pretty religious response, analogous too "only people who have themselves lived perfect lives are fit to speak about ethics" -- which is obviously untrue: who better to speak of the benefits of walking the straight and narrow path than he who has tried & failed? Using a computer to "complain about" (loaded, that) the pull of consumerism strikes me as perhaps more complex than you'd like to allow. Buying a computer = admitting one's status as art of a certain class, certainly not negating everything one might have to say about same.

To use a musical example: Jarvis Cocker's observations regarding class in "Common People" are grebt, even though he is at that point pretty clearly removed from the people through whose voices he's speaking

To use a musical example: Jarvis Cocker's observations regarding class in "Common People" are grebt, even though he is at that point pretty clearly removed from the people through whose voices he's speaking

I don't think it's "at that point". It's "after that point". Big difference. More thrills.

If not, what do you need?

I have seen boys & girls in cages, 3ft by 3ft by 3ft, positively prosper. We move them to bigger cages and they become snobs.

I'd still comsider a computer a luxury, although I'd be quite useless without it. Christmas is also pretty useless to me, but it gets me family goin', so all the better.

Solution:

1. Sell your old piss-soaked underwear.

2. Give your money to the rich.

3. Await trickle-down effect.