Bring Back Autumn!!

What is wrong with people? Yesterday, Monday the 6th of September 2010, I had the misfortune of being placed in the position of needing to go to Trago Mills. For those reading this who haven't yet come across Trago Mills, it is a shop - about the size of Canterbury. A shop which sells just about everything at prices that are generally cheaper than most. Hooray for those of us seeking DIY tools. A shop that is teeming with people who are either excited to the point of frenzy, drooling at the low prices and filling their plastic pull-along carts with junk that they don't need and will never use or couples arguing, loudly and often incoherently after traipsing around the place, getting completely lost and forgetting why the f**k they came there in the first place. A shop where security guards check your shopping bag on the way out and cardboard-cut-out, life-sized policemen advertise the number of shoplifters they've prosecuted that month.

I try to avoid going to Trago Mills. But when a shopping list builds up and, for example, a packet of ten plastic curtain hooks costs 69p, compared to £2.99 at Homebase, well, you have to give in, bite down hard on a hunk of wood and brace yourself against people wetting themselves with avarice or husband shouting at wife, "It's okay when we look at what you want to look at, but when it comes to me, oh no, no, not a bloody look in!" Perhaps I ought to stuff my ears with cotton wool and wear blinkers? Anyway, back to the point, I hopped in my Jeep and headed, defiantly, to Trago Mills.

What do I find when I get there? The entire area, approximating to the size of a football pitch, that only weeks ago was dedicated to drawing money from the wallet in pursuance of living it up in the garden, is festooned with bloody Christmas stuff! Cards, crackers, trees, tinsel... well, you know what Christmas stuff is...

Hello? Is it me? It's the first week of September! What happened to Autumn? That fabulous season in which trees send their leaves to the ground in a fabulous array of reds, yellows, golds and browns; in which farmers reap their harvests and roll their hay; in which the cooling musty air hints at the Winter to come but can still surprise with warm bathing sunshine. Well? Come on Mr. Sainsbury, Mr. John Lewis, Mr. Tesco, Mr Bloody Trago Mills, what's your excuse? Why have you done away with our lovely Autumn?

In some ways, I suppose, you can't blame the hideous conglomerate kleptomaniacs for parading Christmas paraphernalia in front of us. Why should I say this? Why should I give them an out? I'll tell you why... it's because the moronic, drooling half-wits in Trago Mills were actually buying the stuff! Picking boxes of crackers off the shelves, looking around the packaging (What for? You know what's in them - jokes not even worthy of a groan, a cheap paper hat and a poorly-moulded plastic something useless), replacing it on the shelf, picking up the next one (Why? You know what's in them - jokes not even...etc.) and then, as my jaw dropped, actually placing it in their basket! What? Are you insane? What is the matter with you?

I like Christmas. I really do. I am very fortunate - I enjoy meeting up with my relatives, chatting about nothing in particular, eating, drinking, playing silly games. So, this is certainly not a Scrooge-inspired rant. But, really, truly, how long does any one person need to prepare for Christmas? Two or three shopping trips, pack a suitcase. That's it. Yes, it can raise the hackles and the blood pressure to leave things until the last minute, but surely, a couple of weeks is all you need? Give it three, go on then... so, let's say December the 1st, shall we?

If I were Cameron, I'd ban the selling of any Christmas item before December the 1st. We don't need it, we really don't. Why do we have to suffer the build up to a single day for a third of an entire year? It's commercialism gone berserk. The saddest thing is that it has diluted the magic of Christmas. How can children get excited about it when it's pushed into their faces in shops, on TV, in newspapers and magazines for four entire months? When Carols and Christmas songs are everywhere you go for more than 120 days?

So, if anyone reading this has actually bought a Christmas item before the 1st of December, stop it. Just stop it. And tell your friends and relatives to stop it. It's pointless and, worse, it is spoiling what used to be a fun and magical time of year. And, if everyone did stop it, perhaps that magic could be revived, hmmmm? And, as an added bonus, we'd get our Autumn back!

P.S. Where is that idiot going to store his stupid crackers for four months? I hope it's somewhere damp and the bloody things don't work! Hah!