LIttlewoods have messed with my memories

What goes around comes around, they say. And the run-up to Christmas, apart from anything else, is a good time for dredging up ancient memories. And shuddering.

Readers of a seriously middle-aged persuasion may recall spending Saturday and Sunday mornings listening to the dulcet tones of Ed Stewpot Stewart as he presented kids’ request show Junior Choice.

It was that magical time before teenage lie-ins, when you still woke up at a sensible hour to go to the shops and spend your pocket money.

(Or you did on the Saturday – Sunday shopping wasn’t even a glint in Tesco's eye in those days, and anyway, one-and-sixpence a week didn’t stretch far beyond Saturday lunchtime.)

One of the regular favourites on Junior Choice was a song/monologue by Terry Scott called My Brother. It’s quite hard to track it down these days – the original isn’t even on iTunes, which is one in the eye for anyone who might be tempted to argue that Apple and all its works are perfect in every way.

But you can find My Brother on YouTube. And the lyrics, if you look hard enough. Google is your friend.

Big Tel sings/monologises at length about his naughty little brother, thuswise: “Who put salt in the sugar bowl? Who put fireworks in the coal? Who put a real live toad-in-the-’ole? My brother!”

Terry goes on to cast aspersions on their mum’s parenting skills – “Every night when we’re wide awake, she makes us go to bed. And then in the morning when we’re fast asleep, she makes us get up!” – before getting back to more of his brother’s crimes and misdemeanours: “Who keeps maggots in a tin? Plays the Twist on ’is violin? Who's been gettin’ at the gin?... My brother!”

All of which was pretty damn chucklesome, especially if you really did have a little brother who really did play the violin. At least, he tried to. But he never got as far as the Watusi, let alone the Twist.

They were happy and (relatively) innocent days, days of bike rides and bruised knees and fishing for tiddlers in the canal and all that stuff that made growing up fun.

And now Littlewoods have come along and spoiled it.

“Who put an XBox under the tree? Who got a Fijit just for me? And who put a laptop on Grandpa’s knee? My mother!”

To the very same jaunty tune as My Brother.

Apparently this paean to buying far too many expensive Christmas presents and then “spreading the cost” (£1,500 at a rough guess) has already prompted several hundred parents to complain to the Advertising Standards Authority that Littlewoods has blown the gaff on Father Christmas.

And the ASA is already trying to wriggle its way out of a very tight corner by claiming that the existence or otherwise of him in the red coat is “not capable of objective substantiation”.

But that nauseatingly coy advert has done more damage than that.

It’s taken one jolly item of nostalgia, mangled it into a TV ad and – before you can say “June Whitfield” – one blogger’s memories are ruined forever.

Turn it off, turn it on again

Ten days to go, eh? Bought all your presents yet? Thought so. In October, wasn’t it, when the streets were empty and the queues were short?

You felt jolly pleased with yourself then, and you feel even more pleased with yourself now as you watch from the comfort of a cosy pub as hordes of shoppers trudge through the gathering gloom.

Your tree’s up and dressed, your lights are gleaming, your cards are sent. It’s mulled wine and mince pies all the way from here to New Year’s Day.

That’s not really you though, is it? You’d like to think it was, but in fact you’re no better off than the other 99 per cent of the population: totally unprepared for Christmas.

The realisation that the Dixon family were in just the same boat came at precisely 8.43 on Tuesday evening, when it became clear that Christmas trees are not compatible with home networking.

We originally had a fairly simple system at Dixon Towers. The internet came in through the telephone wire to a router in what could loosely be described as the study. Then, by the power of radio, it went in a series of short hops to the bedroom in the roof and various games consoles, laptops and touch-screen devices liberally scattered about the house.

There was another radio network which broadcast music to the stereo system and grovelling letters of apology to the printer.

And all of this was fine and dandy, until the XBox 360 stopped talking to XBox Live.

Now any teenage boy reading this (and there are lots) will understand that if he can’t go on COD War IV and repeatedly kill and be killed by other teenage boys whom he has never met in his life, then that life isn’t worth living, and his parents need to sort it out. Fast.

A quick call to our internet service provider established that they couldn’t believe that our system had ever worked in the first place, and that they certainly weren’t going to offer to fix it.

Their only suggestion was to move the router downstairs and hard-wire it to the XBox.

And if that sounds complicated, then you might as well stop reading now. Because from here on things get really technical.

We moved the router. We bought special short wires to link it to the XBox. We reconfigured the wi-fi gizmos so that the internet would go upstairs from the router and then back downstairs to all the other gadgets and the music would go downstairs from the computer and then back upstairs to the stereo along with the letters to the bank and the pictures we were supposed to post to overseas relatives two weeks ago. And we turned it all off and we turned it all on again. Twice, just to be sure.

And the only thing that worked properly was the XBox. The music sounded like an early experiment by Marconi. The printer would  have disappointed William Caxton. The internet was like treacle. But Dixon Junior could take potshots at like-minded warriors across the globe, so that was all right.

Then we got the Christmas tree.

And the only place it would fit was right next to the XBox. And Dixon Junior, quite justifiably, didn’t want pine needles getting into his electronic pride and joy. There weren’t enough sockets for the fairy lights. And Caxton needed his printer back. So we put everything back the way it was, as far as we could remember it. And it worked.

The moral of the story? If it ain’t broke, then don’t fix it. If it is broke, then fix it properly. And if you don’t think you can fix it, then don’t break it in the first place.

Goodbye Mario, hello XBox

Once upon a time there was a plumber called Mario. He was Italian, he was slightly plump and he had a bushy moustache.

He wore blue dungarees, a red shirt, white gloves and a red hat with an “M” on it.


He spent most of his working life jumping in and out of pipes, trying to rescue a princess (variously known as Pauline, Peach, or Daisy) from a malevolent fire-breathing lizard who answered to the name of Bowser.

Mario had a younger, slightly slimmer brother called Luigi, who dressed in green rather than red. They lived together in the Mushroom Kingdom, and away from their princess-rescuing duties they enjoyed go-karting, tennis, winter sports and pinball. They were all-round good guys, and Mario always got the girl in the end.

Now, as you probably already know, Mario wasn’t a real person.

And as you’ll certainly be aware if you’ve been anywhere near a video games shop in the last 25 years or so, he was (and still is) the best-selling game character ever, having shifted more than 210 million units for creators Nintendo.

In one respect video games aren’t kids’ stuff. They make more money than Hollywood movies, they outsell DVDs and CDs, and they bring millions of pounds into the UK economy every year.

You can read any number of  newspaper articles about how they deserve the same media coverage as books, plays and first-run movies.

Written, one suspects, by journalists who would like to get hold of a few more review copies.

But just like Tom and Jerry, Top Cat or any Disney character you care to mention, video games are a part of modern childhood.

Our children have grown up with Mario, helped him on his adventures, persevered through their frustration as they guided him through the twists and jumps of his surreal, multi-coloured world.

And as parents we’ve enjoyed his company too: harmless, cartoonish, endlessly witty and, yes, mildly addictive. He never swore, he despatched his enemies by bouncing off their heads, and even when he died he didn’t leave a nasty mess on the virtual floor.

But now it may be time to say farewell to Mario in his many incarnations. Kids get older and turn into teenagers, but Mario, a bit like Peter Pan, never grows up.

Before Christmas, Dixon Junior decided that he was of an age where an XBox 360 would be better suited to his gaming needs than our Wii. It has better graphics (if you like brown), it has more exciting games, it’s  cooler (and more violent) than Nintendo’s generally family-oriented offerings.

To his credit, he saved up for one himself with his Christmas money and his allowance.

But now, as the house resounds to the Third Russian Shock Army advancing on Berlin, it does feel rather as if we’ve lost a friend.

So long, Mario. We’ll miss you.