Do They Know It's Not Christmas?

It's been there for a week or so now, like some repulsive green invader from another world, the area around its landing site festooned with eerie lights. Just out of frame on the left of this shot, the permanently attention-starved DJs from our local radio station are on a makeshift stage "entertaining" the passers-by with the worst songs that the Eighties and Nineties ever vomited out. (On the other hand, it could be worse; a couple of summers back they organised a bank holiday event outside my old pub promising the appearance of a mystery celebrity. It turned out to be a long-haired guy in bermuda shorts called The Amazing Carlos. They'd delivered on their promise, really, because it was a definite mystery to all and sundry at the event who this "celebrity" actually was. No-one had heard of him before, no-one's heard of him since, and to this day I'm convinced they just stuck a Hawaiian shirt on some homeless bloke and told him to get up on stage and go nuts).

Well, anyway, this is all part and parcel of the city council's efforts to massage the economy back into life, so I suppose I shouldn't mock it too much. Just sort of wish they'd done the honourable thing and left it till December, but since it's there now, I may as well get into the spirit of the season...

PEOPLE OF THE NORTH-WEST: SPEND! SPEND! SPEND! If you don't, The Amazing Carlos will be paying you a visit. You've been warned.