thu 28/03/2024

theartsdesk Christmas Message | reviews, news & interviews

theartsdesk Christmas Message

theartsdesk Christmas Message

Merry Crispmas: we suggest a rebranding of the big day

Once upon a time in the central West Bank, a child called Jesus was allegedly born to a virgin. Once upon an even earlier time, the Greek demigod Perseus was also allegedly born to a virgin, likewise the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. You can probably see where I’m going with this. There have been countless holy figures from Mexico to China, from Mongolia to Korea, and on and on down the millennia, who have supposedly been born in this biology-denying manner. Within the macrocosm of the mythic it all makes perfect sense: obviously a supernatural being would come into being in a supernatural way – first impressions are extremely important, especially when you’re after unquestioning adoration and obedience.

But there is actually another more prosaic explanation for all these virgin births. Before we knew about the mechanics of sexual reproduction, birth was as mysterious a process for mere mortals as it was for gods. In other words, all human beings were virgin births as far as our biologically ignorant and superstitious distant ancestors were concerned. As for our particular favourite virgin birth’s birthday - we all know it wasn’t 25 December. What we now call Christmas Day was part of pagan festivities for tens of thousands of years before the little baby Jesus started throwing gold, frankincense and myrrh out of his manger. It was simply politically expedient to make it Christ’s birthday so that the ancient Brits didn’t have to change their holiday plans.

The hotchpotch mix of the Pagan and the Christian still hangs over the day to the extent that our favourite annual break is now represented by the surreal juxtaposition of a fat old bearded bloke dressed in scarlet (the result of Coca Cola’s ad men giving the green-robed Holly King a makeover) and a glowing child in a crib. Surreally speaking it’s pipped to the post only by Easter with its cute fluffy bunnies and yummy chocolate eggs juxtaposed with a man slowly dying in agony, his feet and hands nailed to a wooden cross.

But this is not just another one of those fashionably cynical anti-Christmas rants. Quite the contrary. I’d just like to suggest – given all the above – that maybe it’s time for another re-branding of our favourite holiday of the year. I’m not saying you shouldn’t stuff yourself with concentration-camp turkey while watching a fir tree slowly die, if that’s your thing. I’m just saying we need a new figurehead, a new demigod if you prefer, to take the Big J’s place. Given that he seemed such a reasonable kind of guy (apart from the occasional lapse, such as when he promised salvation to men who abandoned their wives and children for him) I’m sure he’d have no objections. But it needs to be someone who definitely was born on the day in question. So who do we have to choose from?

john-hurt-as-quentin-crispWell, I don’t think it should be Annie Lennox (25/12/54). Yes, she wrote a song called "Angels" and she’s Scottish (which is quite a Christmassy thing to be), but she’s just too skinny to look festive enough. Humphrey Bogart (25/12/1899)? It’d be a bit of a mouthful to have to say, “Happy Humphrey-mas!” every five minutes and monochrome’s not really a great look for a time of celebration. So how about Quentin Crisp (25/12/1928)? “Merry Crisp-mas” does have a pleasing echo of the deep and crisp and even snowfall we always wish for but rarely get (apart from this year), and with his coiffured purple hair, rakishly angled fedora and florid neckties he’d certainly make a perfect alternative Christmas fairy (pictured above right: John Hurt as Quentin Crisp). Plus there are many Crisp utterances as wise and pithy as anything Jesus came up with. Here he is on the Almighty, for example: “I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds.” And here’s one you could quote at the teenager in your life when they ask for a Crisp-mas present of the latest designer togs: “Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.” That’d give them something to mull over.

isaac_newtonPerhaps the most appropriate candidate would be Sir Isaac Newton (25/12/1643). He may have been, as Christopher Hitchens put it in God is Not Great, “a spiritualist and alchemist of a particularly laughable kind”, but he was also one of the greatest physicists, mathematicians and astronomers this country has ever produced. And his very Sir-ness gives him a certain gravitas (no pun intended) which - when combined with his wavy rock-star locks and noble demeanour (pictured left) - makes him the perfect mix of the austere and the sexy that our re-brand needs. Every household in our increasingly secular nation could have a bonsai-like apple tree genetically engineered to drop all of its little rosy apples, like pine needles, by New Year’s Day. Thus we would be able to witness - over and over again - the completely factual and completely non-mythical miracle of gravity; the force that makes possible our very existence on this Christmas bauble we call Earth.

But maybe Sir Isaac is too dry. Isn’t there someone with a bit more Christmas spirit about them? Well, it depends what you mean by spirit. But there is one final candidate I have for your consideration: Shane MacGowan (25/12/1958). The pickled old punk was surely born to preside over a day which once honoured the Greek god of booze-induced abandon, Dionysus, and the Roman god of wine, Bacchus. And the man’s biggest hit, “Fairy Tale of New York”, despite its bleak and desperate lyrics, is merrily sung along to by many of us over the festive season (which is something of a mini-miracle in itself). It’s not hard to picture MacGowan, with his graveyard grin and pickled-egg eyes, gracing our Christmas cards, reminding us that there are people in the world far worse off than us at this very special time of year.

But of all of the above candidates, it’s Quentin who gets my vote. The sardonic old raconteur was most famous for being openly homosexual at a time when it could have cost him his life. But, rather tellingly, if he were alive today and living in his adopted country of America, it would be his atheism, not his homosexuality, which might get him in the most trouble. A recent survey claimed that a disturbing 92 per cent of the population of the USA believe in God, and more Americans believe in the Devil than in Darwin. When you also throw into the mix the fact that 35 per cent believe in UFOs and 31 per cent in witches, it really gives pause for thought. I’ll close with one last quote from the Great Crisp: “When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe?'” That says it all, I think.

Watch the Pogues's "Fairy Tale of New York"

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