I never thought I would live long enough to be part of a world in which an advert becomes one of the highlights of the pre-Christmas television, is it a sign that the actual television is a bit crap nowadays? Even more space age is the fact that the advert (and possibly all of the Christmas adverts) doesn't premier on the actual telly, but is usually sought out and watched at our leisure on YouTube. Imagine my reaction when the 2016 version of myself visited me when I was a child and told me that we would not have to wait at the television to catch the advert because we could watch it on a computer. "Rubbish" I replied, "it takes at least half an hour to load the inexplicably popular schools game Flowers of Crystal, so the concept of watching moving images on a computer is nonsense. Next you'll be telling me that we'll be able to send messages this way or buy things, fuck off out of my face before I inform the authorities". 

Anyway, today was the day that we watched this year's John Lewis Christmas offering and to be honest, I wish I hadn't bothered. Of course it wasn't as bad as the one they threw out last year but I do feel that John Lewis has become a victim of its own expectation after producing some classic tearjerkers over the years. Although last year was a pretty weak effort (although it did carry a serious message about the elderly being alone at Christmas and tied in with Age Concern), this year the unthinkable has happened and John Lewis has jumped the shark. I'm not going to describe the advert to you, but it involves animals that will no doubt be on sale in their cuddly versions. 

There is one way in which John Lewis really has fucked up though, and that is the dad putting up the trampoline in the garden in an advert that children will be watching. This isn't the first time that Santa Claus has been debunked like this and it is not good for children to see. The world is a sad shitty place when you grow up and all the magic goes so surely the Father Christmas myth should be prolonged for as long as possible, after all some people never grow out of the idea of God or Jesus. One crumb of comfort is that we have been spared the horror of Ed Sheeran covering David Bowie as the soundtrack. 

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 This week's edition of The Sunday Alternative is here. 

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