Christmas decorations. Christmas adverts. Not very Christian reactions. And political correctness.

More Christmas decorations are popping up around the village. All very bright and cheerful, but it still seems a bit early. However, from news reports I understand that our village isn’t the only place doing it. People feel the need to be cheered up apparently. How soon before the Christmas songs start to be played in the local co-op store?

Christmas adverts for the big stores and supermarkets are out already. I have studiously skipped over the John Lewis advert, which has popped up on my Facebook page. I never quite understand why there is such excitement every year about what their advert will contain. I’ve not managed to avoid the Christmas advert for Aldi as it has appeared on  Netflix or More4 or one of the other places where we seek interesting things (usually foreign language detective series) to watch. I am tempted to accuse that Aldi advert of plagiarism as the (rather cannibalistic) storyline about the father carrot trying to get home in time for Christmas seems to be very reminiscent of a Stickman story I read to one of my small granddaughters. But in the end, does it matter that much to me? Probably not.

My daughter tells me that the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert has caused a bit of a racist stir on social media. This is another advert I have not seen but I am told it features a black family. Some people have objected to this and have declared their intention to stop shopping at Sainsbury’s. Well, that sounds like a very Christian attitude! It’s hard to believe that we are in the 21st century sometimes.

In my Italian class we have continued to discuss the North-South divide in that country, our Sicilian born teacher telling us that the “unification” of Italy was really more of a “conquest” of the South by the North. She might, of course, be a little prejudiced but when you look into it there could be a grain of truth there. She showed us a photo from back in the 1950s, a photo of a sign advertising rooms to let somewhere in Milan, stating clearly “No Southerners”. Reminiscent of similar signs you would have seen in England stating “No Irish”. Immigrants don’t have to come from too far away, or to speak a totally different language, to be discriminated against. And it still goes on, just in a less blatant form. This is the 21st century, after all!

And because it’s the 21st century, we are all running around making amends for the past. One of the latest oddities I have come across is the decision to change the name of the Marie Stopes International clinics to MSI. The acronym is less offensive than the full name apparently. Why is the name offensive? Because Marie Stopes had some rather dubious ideas about eugenics and strongly opposed inter-racial marriage. Not a very acceptable world view but she was a product of her time and we should not forget the good she did. As we know, many revered figures from the past have ideas and opinions not acceptable nowadays. No, they were not right to have such ideas and opinions and we should not condone them, but neither should we let that wipe out the good things they did as well.

Right, that’s enough ranting for one day.

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!