eight

-ty seven.

Advent Blip - Day 8

"A mouth like a vandalised cemetery"

This must be the best, and certainly one of the most accurate, descriptions EVER of a celebrity.

1987. The year that the only Christmas tune worth it's weight in gold tinsel was first released. The Pogues & Kirsty McColl released the sublime 'Fairytale of New York' to an unappreciative audience. Unappreciative in the main because, in the UK at least, it only made it to number two in the charts. It was kept off the Number one spot by The Pet Shop Boys version of 'Always on My Mind'. Go figure.

Still, over the course of the years, the song has become appreciated and recognised as the perfect antidote to the cheesy pop tunes that normally fill the airwaves at this time of year (or used to before Simon Cowell Stole Christmas). And, after Kirsty MacColl's untimely accidental death a week before Christmas 2000 the tune became legend.

There's a fantastic documentary produced by the BBC from 2007 on the making of this song that hopefully will be shown again this year. If it is on, it's worth a viewing, even just if it is to see Shane MacGowan almost sober and comprehensible.

"Happy Christmas yer arse!"

<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>-<>

Proximity to Christmas indicator backup: Drive home from work tonight - Festive festooned households - twenty six

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