I wrote this blog 12 years ago, when I must have been a strange mood.

The 21st December is the last Sunday (this year) of Advent and traditionally the shortest day of the year.

There are a lot of references to life that made sense to me in my early fifties that don’t make sense to me now.

I’m walking backwards for Christmas is Spike Milligan’s love song and I put the lyrics at the bottom and the Goon’s rendition in the middle. At the top is a very puzzled Adam looking a little dubious about the apple with the snake looking on from above.

Why I’m walking backwards for Christmas.

Why anyone ever thought walking backwards for Christmas was funny is beyond me. This is only the latest in a long line of Christmases (2013 and counting).

Perhaps the song inspired a nation to collectively give up on common sense (Scrooge had a point) and abandon itself to debt once more. After all it is only Christmas.

I saw a lady walking down London Wall this morning, what a sourpuss, I turned to her and tried to cheer her up “cheer up it’s Christmas” said I. She flicked me a V and walked off. That knocked some sense into me.

If we could find some way to get through the next fortnight (I write on the 20^th) without having to drink Baileys, sing Bing Crosby or indulge in Secret frigging Santa, I could bear it. But no. We have the same rituals and all that changes is a vague sense that if we spend more, drink more, sing more and degenerate into “vulnerable consumers”, then there would be space for the upside.

I’m put in mind of this as much as Spike Milligan

On 21^st December, St Lucies Day , “

Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,

Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world’s whole sap is sunk;

The general balm th’ hydroptic earth hath drunk,

Whither, as to the bed’s feet, life is shrunk,

Dead and interr’d; yet all these seem to laugh,

Compar’d with me, who am their epitaph

So said John Donne, a gloomy bugger if ever there was one. The shortest day of the year, the solstice, the turning point where the diurnal round inches back to light and warmth and summer.

When I lived in Iceland it was dark all day and night right now. The Aurora Borealis didn’t bother showing up, too damn gloomy. People topped themselves – went bonkers because of perpetual night. They didn’t need the excuse of Christmas.

So I’m walking backwards for Christmas. I’ll walk past the drunken girls making their way over Eton Bridge tonight (in the rain and in their skimpies). I’ll pass on the other side from the lads pissing themselves down Eton High Street on the way up to Slough. I’ll resist the temptation to have mice pies with Jeff and his missus (so kindly meant).

Instead I’ll slip home and make myself a cup of tea and turn on the laptop and write another blog about pensions.

I’m walking backwards and the sooner I get the hang of becoming a Christmas moron- the better!

So here are my top five Christmas hates so far this advent

1. That bloody game
2. E-Christmas cards
3. E–Chrismas cards on twitter
4. The John Lewis ad (other than the Private Eye verdict)
5. Carol Singing

I’m walking backwards for Christmas
Across the Irish Sea
I’m walking backwards for Christmas
It’s the only thing for me

I’ve tried walking sideways, and walking to the front
But people just look at me and say it’s a publicity stunt
I’m walking backwards for Christmas
To prove that I love you

An immigrant lad loved an Irish colleen
From Dublin, Galway Bay
He longed for her arms, but she spurned his charms
And he sailed o’er the foam away

She left the lad by himself, on his own
All alone, a-sorrowing
And sadly he dreamed, or at least that’s the way it seemed, buddy
That an angel choir for him
An angel choir did sing

I’m walking backwards for Christmas
Across the Irish Sea
I’m walking backwards for Christmas
It’s the finest thing for me

And so I’ve tried walking sideways
And walking to the front
But people just laughed, and said, “It’s a publicity stunt”
So I’m walking backwards for Christmas
To prove that I love you