So Christmas is just over a month away now, and that fateful time of year has arrived once again – the unveiling of the Fenwicks Christmas window display.
This year the window displays Paddington Bear at Christmas, and this means the death of my ability to walk from one end of Northumberland Street to the other without having to weave my way around a horrifically long line of people waiting to – you guessed it – just look at the window.
They stand there, muttering, inching forwards every few minutes and grumbling to themselves about why it’s taking so long to get to the front. I honestly cannot comprehend the logic of these people. Why would you wait in line at midday for twenty minutes when you could come back at seven at night and see the entire thing in two minutes flat?
All the joys of a fifty-year-old fictional bear in a meaningless Christmas scene, instantly viewable and accessible for all in less than the time it takes for a tin of soup to heat up in your microwave. Why stand there?
And, more importantly, why stand there when you have spent the last ten minutes complaining that Paddington ‘doesn’t even have anything to do with Christmas’? If that’s true, why do you care about seeing him so much, as part of an extensive marketing ploy no less?!
You’re all mad.
Mad, and in my way.
Move.