{"id":550,"date":"2005-12-28T20:27:36","date_gmt":"2005-12-28T20:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/bologs\/vng\/fairytale-of-new-cross\/"},"modified":"2005-12-28T20:27:36","modified_gmt":"2005-12-28T20:27:36","slug":"fairytale-of-new-cross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/fairytale-of-new-cross\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairytale of New Cross"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back at Christmas, it couldn&#8217;t have been better unless all of the people I knew in London had turned up for a drink. Unlikely, as they were all with <i>their<\/i> families hoping for a visit too, so that had bad odds. But it was, in all, a good exponenet of the genre. Some examples of ancient traditions being upheld:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Christmas Eve: expecting a quiet night to avoid a let down&#8230;changing my mind and going out&#8230;and it was quite good. Met up with Tony and Zap in the Rosie for a couple. The new guvnor (number 71612 this year) was very pleased to see us, if only because the late night custom was looking doubtful. We left at &#8220;closing time&#8221; (as we used to call it before the new licencing laws) , just as the DJs had started to play their peasant-wedding-style set. Off to the Hobgoblin to pass on  Christmas greetings to The Fairy Godmother and Wee John. After a few &#8220;get out, we&#8217;re closed&#8221; type comments they invited us in and we shared an hour of pleasant conversation with them, Welsh Mike and the other regulars. Sorry, that should have read &#8220;we talked drunk pub bollocks&#8221; with Welsh Mike and the regulars. When it was time enough for us to leave we said our goodbyes and staggered out into the cold. I then broke my golden rule: <i>if going to the New Cross Inn seems like a good idea after the pubs shut, then you are clearly too pissed to be making that sort of decision and should go home.<\/i> Luckily, the presence of bouncers and a 5 quid entrance fee was enough to dissuade us and we resigned ourselves to getting home before the busses finished and getting to bed at &#8220;quite&#8221; a late hour. However, good sense was not to prevail! I&#8217;d forgotten that Vicky, a good acquaintance, was now running the NXI. She not only insisted we came in for a drink, but waived the 5 quid entrance charge. Drink, hip-hop, slurring, leaving late, chicken shop&#8230;.that sort of thing.<\/li>\n<li>Christmas telly! OK a lot of shit and if I hear &#8220;Fairytale of New York&#8221; one more time I&#8217;m going to loose control. Don&#8217;t get me started&#8230;.but there were good things on too. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0123755\/\" target=\"_new\">Cube<\/a>! Ok, pretentious and pretty ridiculous, but very enjoyable in a sick sort of way. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0181689\/\" target=\"_new\">Minority Report<\/a> was surprisingly good! Posing the question of whether one can be rightly accused of murder before the murder takes place ?&#8221;. Of course, in these enlightened times we know the answer is yes! That&#8217;s what Guantanamo Bay and Belmarsh are for!<\/li>\n<li>Yahtzee. Anyone fancy a challenge ? I&#8217;ll bet <i>anyone<\/i> that I&#8217;m crapper at any sport, game or contest than them. My sister thrashed me.<\/li>\n<li>Cheese, sherry, wine, turkey and smoked salmon. Nuff said<\/li>\n<li>Crap British 70&#8217;s sitcom spin-off films! On the buses, dad&#8217;s army, likely lads, the list goes on. We know they&#8217;re crap! We know they&#8217;re full of diabolical, racist, sexist, right-wing, bullshit, but if you grew up in the 70s there&#8217;s something forgivable about it. Like having a brain-damaged sibling or something. And at least the Clement\/LaFrenais ones have some good jokes too.<\/li>\n<li>Humph! Green and pink! The christmas bird!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back at Christmas, it couldn&#8217;t have been better unless all of the people I knew in London had turned up for a drink. Unlikely, as they were all with their families hoping for a visit too, so that had bad odds. But it was, in all, a good exponenet of the genre. Some examples [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}