Seasonal Ambivalence Disorder

I almost called this post "Two go mad in TK Maxx" - because we did. We bought things, several of which will make entirely satisfactory Christmas gifts (that's satisfactory to the donor, obviously; I can't speak for the recipient). We refrained from buying other things - and it was at this point I realised that on the internet, you never know who is watching, so I had better not spill all the beans about what we did and didn't buy, just in case any of said recipients happened to be passing. I will merely say that when you find yourself eyeing the USB volcano (durham_rambler), or looking at the Christmas tree skirts in a variety of gaudy red, green and gold designs, and thinking "I wonder if they have that in my size?" - that's when it's time to leave.

So we moved on to Tesco's, where the remnants of our shopping frenzy swept us into the purchase of a new kettle, D. having commented that the previous one was sitting in a growing puddle of water, and this wasn't really good for electrical appliances (he's right; he always is).

Also in Tesco's, I had a conversation with a total stranger. We found ourselves nose to nose over the cooking chocolate, which was on the bottom shelf. She was hesitating, she explained, over the choice of white chocolate with which to make a cheesecake; they only had one kind, but she was wondering if it was good enough. "I can't see where it says what percentage it is," she said. "I'm looking for 80%." Riiight.

So the shopping is hard work, but tolerable. The advertising is excruciating. This realisation comes to you courtesy of the fact that I've been watching a certain amount of afternoon television in the past week. I won't say what I've been watching, but if you need to know, you'll be able to work it out when I tell you that I'd always assumed that Susie's clothes were less bizarre than Carol's, but that I was misled by the fact that you only ever see her from the waist up. When she comes out from behind her desk, she reveals the fashionably lop-sided hemline complete with frills, worn over spike-heeled boots. I know nothing (but I know what I don't like).

Usually, the advertising breaks are filled with stair-lifts and bathroom conversions for people who can't cope with baths any more. But it's Christmas, so they are now trying to sell us CDs of Welsh male voice choirs, Scottish pipers and Irish priests (yes, really). This isn't music to buy because you like it, this is music to buy for your mother, who doesn't really like music (or possibly, about whose musical taste you know only that she doesn't like anything you like).

I wasn't going to mention the perfume ads (the woman who's going to be Shirley Bassey when she grows up, singing Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, the woman casting off all the inessentials - i.e. doing a strip tease - as she strides through the state appartments to the bathroom where she will, presumably, bathe in Christian Dior), but then I saw the ad in yesterday's colour supplement for Daisy, by Marc Jacobs and my resolve faltered. It wasn't the totally un-daisylike black bottle, or the almost totally un-daisylike gold flowers which form the stopper. No, what got me was that someone had looked at this daisy-free zone and thought "Now, what do we need here?" and added a small grey kitten. Yup, that'll sell anything.

(Don't know if it appears on their web site, and frankly I'm out of time: desperance is here, and I must go and cook, and talk to him, and drink things, and other pleasures)