I woke up this morning in a largely un-Christmassy house as Mandi had got up before me to tackle the task of taking the decorations down. The whole of the downstairs had been done so I don’t know what time she woke up, the decorations in the bedroom were still up but it was nice to see all our regular pictures and ornaments back where they belong, and of course it is always nice to have my office doubling up as a dumping ground for Christmas decorations. Although we are two days early taking them down, it made sense to do it today to give us a clean start to normality tomorrow when we, along with the rest of the world, return to work. There is something quite dispiriting about coming home from work to a twinkling festive land on the other side of the holiday, which got me thinking about our attitude to Christmas on either side of December 25^th.

Take for example the Christmas jumper; once the preserve of Noel Edmunds and the office dickhead who describes himself as ‘wacky’, and now the ultimate symbol of kitsch that it is acceptable to wear out of the house in the run up to Christmas Day. Workplaces have Christmas jumper theme days and all walks of life can be seen wearing them, even the rolled up trousers and silly hat brigade. I wore a Christmas jumper when we went out for a meal on Boxing Day and a child told me that it wasn’t Christmas anymore. Boxing Day isn’t Christmas anymore? Surely Boxing Day is better than Christmas Day isn’t it? Christmas Day has stress and pressure whereas Boxing Day is just a day to laze around and take it easy but according to a passing group of ragamuffin kids it was no longer Christmas. To be fair, if you’re a child wandering the streets on Boxing Day I can’t imagine Christmas being that big a deal to you so they probably learned from their parents that Christmas is a one day event. You don’t see a Christmas jumper though on this side of the holiday and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t. Does nobody celebrate Christmas as a holiday rather than a day anymore? I know I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about Christmas this year, but I was always a big supporter of the ethos that Christmas lasts until January 6^th; it is just unfortunate that the 6^th falls wrong and so people have to go back to work during the holiday like this year for example when we all trundle back to the grindstone on Monday 5^th.

Nobody sees anything wrong with exchanging presents after the 25^th if you haven’t seen the person before the big day, but have you ever received a Christmas card later? If someone handed you a card on December 28^th you would think it was an afterthought but, yet a Christmas card is a greeting that wishes people well during Christmas so why can’t we send or receive them throughout the holiday?

It’s nice to see that a lot of shops (and banks etc) still have decorations up at this time of the year, but it is equally sad to see the haste in which supermarkets and department stores relegate Christmas items to the ‘reduced to clear’ shelf. Christmas music is another one, ubiquitous until Christmas Day and suddenly wiped from the memories of radio stations, music channels, and shopping centres on Boxing Day. Even the Winter Wonderland in the middle of town has done away with festive tunes in favour of bland pop, (although as it’s sponsored by Capital FM they are probably playing the same six songs on a loop, I’ve never stuck around long enough to find out). Television does a little bit better to keep Christmas alive; the idents stay Christmassy until New Year’s Day at least, and there are still a smattering of Christmas specials to enjoy (although there seems to be a new trend at Christmas to repeat everything later in the week) but people mention Christmas in the past tense from Boxing Day onwards and this is wrong isn’t it?

Rather than asking if someone had a nice Christmas, keep wishing him or her Merry Christmas until the 6^th of January. Maybe it’ll even help to get my festive spirit back.

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

photo from BBC website

This morning I spotted a tweet linking to a YouTube video of the whole of the 1985 Christmas Day programmes that Noel Edmonds used to do on BBC1 live from what was then the Telecom Tower, a variation on his Saturday teatime show The Late Late Breakfast Show with the slightly modified title Live Live Christmas Breakfast Show. Noel was holding court at Telecom Tower, Radio 1 DJ ‘oooh’ Gary Davies (with The Krankies) presented from a Virgin aeroplane full of children making it the first ever broadcast from a commercial flight. BBC presenters hosted bits from Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff and Northern Ireland, a bit like on Children In Need where they give regional presenters a moment of national fame, and Mike Smith arrived in style by helicopter to a village in Sussex to invite the residents to turn up and play various ‘wacky’ sports on the green. If that wasn’t enough they also found the time to be interactive 1980s style, (if you phoned in a dedication it would be available to read on Ceefax), and officially launch Comic Relief with a live link-up to Ethiopia. Pulling off such an achievement on live television wasn’t without its technical problems way back in 1985, but looking back at what they had to play with regarding 1980s technology it stands up as a brilliant piece of experimental television. When you realise how many people were involved in this task it is impressive enough, then it dawns on you that this was done live on Christmas Day. The pressure to get it right on the one day of the year that everyone is indoors and very likely to at that time of day have the television on must have been immense, and those poor people in the 1980s only had four television channels so potentially a quarter of the UK will have seen if they fucked it up and had to bring out the girl playing noughts and crosses with a clown.

The reason I mention it is of course because it was tweeted in tribute to Mike Smith, whose death at the young age of 59 was announced this weekend.

Despite being a long time fan of the superior medium of radio over television, it is actually television where I first became aware of Mike Smith. Although his stint as the breakfast show presenter on Radio 1 was on in the car to school, to me he wasn’t a radio person. Presenting Top of the Pops on occasion and being Noel Edmonds’s man-at-the-scene on The Late Late Breakfast Show made Mike Smith a star. ‘Smitty’ parted company with Edmonds following the tragic death of a contestant taking part in a daredevil challenge and went on to forge a career as a television ‘go to’ man. Regarded as something of a jokey poster boy for bland presentation, Mike Smith was a million miles better than he was ever given credit for while he was alive. Radio-wise, he rose through hospital radio and behind the scenes at BBC radio, moved to Capital Radio (the proper Capital Radio, meaning the London only station), and then returned to the BBC on the right side of the microphone. Eventually he took over the flagship breakfast show in 1986.

As I said though, it was television where Mike Smith shone. Whether presenting fluffy light entertainment fare such as the largely forgotten panel game That’s Showbusiness or ITV’s Trick or Treat with Julian Clary, to semi-serious documentaries The Really Useful Guide To Alcohol and AIDS: Your Choice For Life, he was a competent host who could turn his hands to anything. His television appearances lessened following his helicopter accident in the late 1980s, leading to the setting up of his aerial filming company responsible for most of the footage we see on news programmes.

In the series The Light Entertainment Story, an episode centred on radio personalities crossing over to television mentioned Noel Edmonds’s return to the big time with Deal or No Deal after a period in the wilderness. Mike Smith appeared on screen appearing genuinely upset at the way Edmonds had blocked him out of his life; when commenting on his former colleague’s comeback he said that he would have phoned to congratulate him if he had his number. This could have made him look like the bitter ex-star but it didn’t, he just looked genuinely upset at no longer feeling a part of something. Speaking to Chris Moyles on a documentary about the breakfast show, Smith admitted he missed radio.

To die at such a young age is a tragedy, to not have been given the chance to make the best use of his talent is a crime. We’ll never know what Mike Smith could have achieved, and that is the biggest tragedy of all.

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The executive editor of the children’s television channel CBBC, Melissa Hardinge, makes the female presenters (the article name checks the presenters of a programme called Friday Download, me neither) remove red lipstick and generally tone it down so as not to look too sexy while on screen. That is about the gist of it, Hardinge is quoted as saying that sexualisation of girls is something they take seriously at the BBC. I’m not sure why this has suddenly become news to be honest, as many employers lay down a rudimentary dress code based on standards, but I can’t help thinking that Melissa Hardinge is wasting her time.

CBBC is the channel aimed at children up to teenage, which is why I am confused about what Hardinge’s problem is. The channel’s presenters aren’t underage, so she can’t be accused of anything too sordid here, and the sad fact is that while you are supposed to grow out of children’s television by about the age of thirteen (although we never really do), attractive presenters keep the audience hanging on a bit longer. Whether it’s a beer advert or children’s television, like it or not, sexiness sells.

Sex has always been used to encourage people to part with their money or to watch television. Is it exploitation or is it just one of those things? I don’t feel that the world really needs Miss World or game show ‘dolly birds’ for no real reason anymore, but it does work both ways. Nobody wants the Diet Coke adverts taken off the air because a bunch of women ogle the fit shirtless man, but we’re supposed to be anti-Page Three, a bandwagon I refuse to jump aboard for the simple reason that personal choice is at stake. I do not see a pair of breasts in my daily newspaper because I read The Independent and The Guardian, and that is the answer – vote with your choice of paper. If I ever find out that The Sun are involved in a human trafficking operation dedicated to dragging attractive women from the streets and forcing them in front of a camera with their tits out then I will change this opinion of course, but as far as I am aware, these women remove their bras out of choice and for a very hefty financial reward. Also, we have to face facts, boobs are wonderful things.

To return to the issue of children’s television, I haven’t had to watch CBBC or any other channel for quite some time now, but I seem to remember both sexes being very easy on the eye. Maybe this hasn’t always been the case (Noel Edmonds, Keith Chegwin and Mike Read were once the faces of Saturday morning television), but I’m sure that Phillip Schofield was just as fancied by the viewers as the lovely Sarah Greene was.

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Telly

The recent death of telly jape merchant Jeremy Beadle got me thinking...

At the height of his television career, Beadle was attracting up to 15million viewers to Beadle's About. He was mainstream, and therefore not at all critically popular. But I liked the show, it was one of those shows that as a kid we watched. Even now, trash TV has a place and that place is Saturday teatime. It's either pre-pub fodder, or in my case nowadays, something to watch with Emily.

I settle down with my daughter to watch You've Been Framed, Harry Hill's TV Burp, Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing On Ice and whatever. Although I have to admit that Harry Hill does do 'YBF' better. Only because a show like that doesn't need a presenter, just a funny narrative. The same rule applies when comparing It'll Be Alright On The Night presented by Dennis Norden to TV'S Naughtiest Blunders narrated by Neil Morrissey.

When Harry Hill dies, it won't be the hilarious but much forgotten Channel Four show he did with Al Murray as 'Big Brother Alan', Bert Quock, and the man from the Joy Of Sex books that he's remembered for in Emily's eyes, but TV Burp. Family entertainment that doesn't rely on bad language and sex to get viewers.

Noel Edmunds is another case in point. House Party was a good show for it's time slot. If you get to see any of the really early ones, you'll see not only how funny it was, but how much of an influence Edmunds was on Ant and Dec (another Saturday show watched by me and Emily). The first time Noel did 'NTV' where the camera reversed into someone's living room we all wondered how it was done.