David Kirkpatrick
Denial is a river in Egypt and I’m in it up to my neck. For weeks now I’ve been ignoring adverts for Iceland mini platters and turning a blind eye to the seasonal funfair in George Square.
However, walking into town a billboard for Coca Cola caught my eye and officially started my crimbo countdown. Twenty years old and already filled with the cynicism of Janet Street Porter, there’s something about Cola’s jovial Santa that forces my face into a big smile which is just not the done thing when on your own. How that shiny red convoy of trucks bringing ice cold beverages to wee punters up way past their bedtime ever became synonymous with the Christmas message is beyond me.
What I do know is that those zealous coke addicts humming ‘holidays are coming’ fills me with the same kind of excitement that hearing newscasters say the word pirates in a serious manner does. And by serious manner, I mean without saying yar or matey seconds later. A concerned party may remind us that they have guns and that people’s lives, including that of two Britons, are at risk. And I would agree that the situation calls cause for concern. A boat full of experienced seamen, held hostage for days now and still no one’s thought of Parlay. What are the schools teaching them?
Jokes aside, there’s still a part of me that against my better nature takes pleasure in the fact that pirates still exist. I can’t envision the story without picturing a swarm of patches and peg legs swinging aboard, stroking their beards and swearing that there be treasure in them there waters.
An encounter with old world bandits later, if you still can’t dare to dream, walk a mile in John Sergeant’s two left shoes. That rotund Romeo has fumbled his way across those buffed floorboards and into a nation’s heart. In a land that’s losing jobs, losing faith, losing polar bears, and yet still can’t shake Kerry Katona, it’s nice to know that this Christmas you could still be commandeered by swash-buckling buccaneers and clumsy oafs can dance their way to stardom. A Coca Cola truck even might, just might, drive down your street. If only you believe.
