I want Christmas lights that work

IT’LL soon be Christmas.

Events are unfolding that have caused me to reflect on the achievements of our species since we crawled out of the primaeval slime and started giving things names.

And do you know something? I don’t care if we now have the means to discover what happened just after the Big Bang. I am not even vaguely impressed with information technology that enables me to email Christmas messages to both my friends (on opposite sides of the world) in 15 seconds flat.

If they have international agreements on sustainable development and greenhouse gas reduction, well, bully for them.

I just want a set of Christmas lights that work.

If they’re so keen on international agreements why don’t they come up with a global standard for the little light bulbs that press into my string of Christmas lights.

Yesterday morning I was festive. I had the polished glow of mistletoe in my eye. Now I want to kill someone.

The person who invented Christmas lights would do, for a start.

I mean, I know we can produce bits of electronic equipment that are so antiseptically advanced they can fly men to the moon. I’ve seen the photos! People in plastic caps, white coats and face masks lovingly nursing silicon chips in factories that look like hospitals.

But they must make Christmas lights in farmyards!

Why are the removable bulbs designed so they only remove in small fragments? Why can you never, ever find a shop this year that can sell you replacement bulbs for last year’s lights?

Why don’t they find some way of letting you know exactly which one is the dud?

I counted the lights on our string. There are 200 of them. I have been through all 200, trying gently to remove each fragile little bulb and replace it with the one remaining spare from last year to ascertain which one is dead.

Now I need 33 new bulbs and I still haven’t found the faulty one. Maybe the spare is faulty. Maybe there’s a break in the wire. Maybe they’re all dead!

Actually, they are. Now. I jumped on them for 15 minutes screaming: “And Merry bloody Christmas to you, too!”

I know it’s about peace and goodwill to all men but it doesn’t say anything in the small print about goodwill to Christmas lights.

They all worked when I put them away last year. I remember is distinctly. I was pleased with them. I was looking forward to seeing their jolly twinkle again this year.

Maybe Christmas light manufacturers are much cleverer and more cunning than I give them credit for. Maybe the damned things are programmed to self-destruct after Twelfth Night. I just wish they’d say so on the packet.

The family turned up last night to see the decorations. My daughter says she never really believes it’s Christmas until the decorations are up in our house.

My wife disagrees. She says no, it isn’t really Christmas until the lights are in the bin, the dog’s hiding under the bed, the mistletoe has been flushed down the lavatory and I have drunk half a bottle of Christmas pudding brandy.

Ho bloody ho ho!