It's not, but Big Howard has found this and wants me to show it to you. It's an article he wrote last year for Time Out magasine at christmas:
Big and Little Christmas
By Howard Read
Having an imaginary, animated child of my own has made me nostalgic for how Christmas used to be. Watching Little Howard (the world’s first and only six-year-old animated, interactive stand-up comedian) I’m reminded, strangely, of myself as a child. As I write this he is praying to Father Christmas, and to the Lord Jesus, and in fact to anyone with a beard that will listen, that Christmas morning will bring him a pedal car and a twelve part series on terrestrial TV. Sweet innocent days.
Christmas for me when I was Little Howard’s age was about waking up with a sock magically full of satsumas. It was getting your parents out of bed by accidentally knocking the tree over on your little brother at four in the morning (Little Howard doesn’t wake me up, he lives in a computer and it has a ‘mute’ button).
I’m sure Christmas has changed since I was Little Howard’s age. Carol singers, for example: The Carol singer’s remember from my childhood were straight out of Dickens; all ruddy cheeks and mince pies, singing their hearts out in the snow, whilst, in the background an elderly Jewish gentleman trained children to steal their pocket handkerchiefs. The last time carol singers called at our house in Walthamstow it was like Trick-or-Treat, but a bit more sinister. Two surly-looking teenagers in shell-suits started singing Good king Wenseslas at me with menaces. To give them their dues they sang for me like they’d never sung before - not once. What’s more I only got one verse, and I’m pretty sure the “deep and crisp and even” bit in that verse refers to snow rather than pizza.
The main thing is Christmas isn’t as fun when you’re grown up. Bit-by-bit, as you get older the joys of Christmas are taken from you one-by-one. Christmas dinner looses a lot of its charm the first time you have to cook it yourself. The joy of sneaking into the living room and shaking all your presents to see what you’ve got is ruined the first time someone gets you wine glasses. Pretending you’re asleep when “Father Christmas” slips into your bedroom is much easier than pretending you weren’t having sex. Finally, as a comic laughing, the fun of laughing at how bad the Christmas Cracker jokes are was ruined the first time I found they’d been stealing mine.
I think, apart from Little Howard, the reason I’m feeling nostalgic is that I’m spending Christmas away from my parents for the first time. I’m going to be in Oldham with my girlfriend and her folks. This is partly because we want to spend Christmas together . but mainly I want to be in Oldham so I can get closer to the true meaning of Christmas by spending it somewhere with a similar level of racial tension to The Holy Land.
Big Howard and Little Howard’s Christmas Appeal
This Christmas: Remember the Gimps
This Christmas spare a thought for the Gimps. Gimps are simple, docile creatures who’s only joy in life is being battered about the bottom with a barbed-wire effigy of Margaret Thatcher. They can’t survive in the wild, left to their own devices they are hunted down for their skin and their zips. Many are taken by wild animals as their only means of defence is shouting a “Safe” word which many bears don’t understand.
Gimps: Do they know it’s Christmas time at all? No, not if you’ve left the in the sensory deprivation tank.
