The Beast of the Epiphany
The comedian Richard Herring has a Christmas story he tells about a thirsty cat in a bathroom. He was sitting on the toilet and reached across to turn the bath tap on for the cat, which then lapped enthusiastically at the water. He says he found the sight hilarious, but imagines that the cat also had quite an amusing view… though, as he goes on to observe, Jesus had the funniest view, getting the combined sights of the drinking cat and the “fat, defecating man”. Because, as Christianity teaches us, Jesus is always watching.
Now, I’m not sure I agree with Herring’s interpretation of Christian doctrine. He’s similarly dodgy in his representations of most religions, in his New-Atheisty way. He tends, as such people do, to take the worst and/or silliest possible interpretations of religious ideas and then generalise them, and to essentialise the religion he’s attacking along the lines of such thick-end-of-the-wedge strawmen. However, it’s also true that a) he’s unambiguously joking, what with saying most of this stuff as part of an open project of, y’know, being funny for a living, and b) he’s deliberately using his own infantile interpretation of religious ideas as part of his usual method of deriving irony from weaponised childishness.
(One day, when I write my massive series about Lee & Herring – comedians who fascinate me both as a team and as individuals – I’ll mean-spiritedly itemise Richard Herring’s many embarrassing forays into simplistic, Dawkinsian, secularist liberalism.)
More pertinently to this essay, there’s something on point about his combining of the concepts of Christmas and of surveillance… because, rather surprisingly, they turn out to be inextricably linked.
As we know, you’d better not pout, you’d better not cry, you’d better be good. I’m telling you why: Santa Claus is coming to town. He knows when you are sleeping, he knows if you’re awake; he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.
It’s a perfect example of shit we’re told as kids that we take for granted, and which the world as a whole winks at or takes as fun, but which is actually bloodcurdling when you stop to really think about it. All over the world, children – including almost all the ones you know, and are at school with, and are friends with – are gearing up to receive presents from a magic, benevolent man… but you might not get any if you fail to obey the rules set for your behaviour by the unaccountable authorities above you, including those who claim to love you. If you disappoint or anger those authorities by infringing their laws, even in your deportment, you might find yourself deprived and excluded from a massive fun game that literally everyone else is getting to play. Of course, you could argue that very few kids these days genuinely believe they’re likely to wake up on Christmas morning to a stocking full of coal. I’m honestly not sure, looking back, if I believed stuff like that or not.…
A surprising Marvel-free week.
Right. Loads of stuff. First off, just a heads up, I’m bumping Last War in Albion one more week because I decided I don’t want to launch a new chapter on a holiday and then drop a Sherlock review on top of it later in the day. There’ll still be Friday morning content though.
We’ll start with the stories ranking, with letter grades assigned, and then finish with some general thoughts on the season.
Box Day, as it were.
An effective holiday farce that serves as a fitting end to the story of River Song. It’s not much more than that, but it makes no claim to be, and you can hardly fault a Christmas special for its froth. So, all told, good episode.