TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY

“FORTIFIED IN THEIR FRONT PARLOURS,” wrote Geoffrey Hill, the most important living English poet, “at Yuletide men are the more murderous. Drunk, they defy battle-axes.” Hill was writing this in the Mercian Hymns, his famous collective “prose poem” which combines some elements of the history of England with his own personal life. One day he will be seen as the most intelligent and interesting English language poet of the last couple of centuries; for the moment I am content to tell a wider world his poetic view of getting “bladdered” at Christmas in Britain.

WHILST AGREEING WHOLEHEARTEDLY WITH HILL as to the murderous aspect of getting out of one’s skin at Yuletide, I would like to add that it is also the time when men, rather than being merry and thus courageous, become more suicidal than at any time of the year except in Nordic countries, when suicide can be happily practised at any time of the year under the supervision of the government, or in Switzerland, where suicide is becoming a verb; as in, “Hello. I’ve come to this clinic to suicide my mother, who is very ill.”

BESIDES GOOD OLD FASHIONED SUICIDE, there is also a dramatic increase in domestic violence. Women, according to many campaigning websites and agencies, are five times more likely to take a beating from their husbands during the twelve days of Christmas than at any other time. Over fifty percent of women who become battered wives suffer their first beating at this time, and most of them will, in the spirit of the season, forgive their husbands, boyfriends or “civil partners” after the latter have promised resolutions for the New Year.

HOPELESS RESOLUTIONS, IT SEEMS, as January is by far the record month for divorce applications in the United Kingdom. All of this suggests the extreme dangers of a society putting about the ideals of goodwill, solidarity, kindness, comfort, joy and peace to all men while cutting jobs, reducing benefits and increasing prices and taxes; anyone who is not exactly experiencing comfort and/or joy will either get wrecked on cheap booze from the local three-for-two supermarket, hang themselves/put their heads in the oven where the turkey ought to be, or become criminally violent. Or all three, although naturally not in this order.

MOST LIKELY NONE OF THESE THINGS will befall me. At the moment I am in Portugal again, in my mountain retreat, where I have come to distribute small but significant gifts to some of the villagers and to fraternize with the local political leaders. And then on again, despite the frightening news of a shutting down of airports, home to England, where what awaits me is the picture above. Christmas greetings to everyone!