Turkey Day

This is the first time I've had two days holiday for a harvest festival, for that is essentially what Thanksgiving ("Turkey Day") is, although these days it's more of an excuse for the Yanks to go home to their families and stuff their faces with vast amounts of grub. The first Thanksgiving was held in 1619 in the Virginia Colony, and the Pilgrims in Massachusetts held a feast in 1621 to celebrate that they were still alive after a pretty rough year, although this wasn't considered at the time to be a true Thanksgiving, as such. It must have been a very strange event. Almost half of the hundred or so Mayflower passengers had snuffed it during the first 12 months due to scurvy, harsh winter conditions, and Test Match Special withdrawal. Of the 53 Pilgrims present at the feast only four were adult women, and given that they were all puritans there probably wasn't much strutting of their funky stuff. There were in fact more Wampanoag people there than English. This feast wasn't repeated by the Pilgrims (presumably they trashed the venue and were subsequently barred), and in fact the fourth Thursday in November business wasn't started until 1863, when Lincoln proclaimed "a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens." As I previously alluded to, these days it's more "a day of Stuffyng of Pieholes in the Name of ye Lord until He sees Fit to explode our Stomachs in His sight."

I went round to Matt's place and got involved with cooking dinner. He'd bought an 18lb turkey-beast which took a whole 5 hours of roasting before it was ready. We spent the afternoon peeling potatoes and chopping carrots and generally preparing what turned out to be a cracking dinner, for which we were joined by some Aussies and a couple of Europeans. After eating twice our RDA of Vitamin T we dragged our stuffed bodies to the lounge and partook in the age-old tradition of Trivial Pursuit. The merry-making was spoiled somewhat by the abysmal English performance in the first Ashes Test, and the smug non-gloating by Aussies present made it even worse. In order to regain our national pride we forced everybody to watch British comedy DVDs - The Mighty Boosh, Black Books, and The Green Wing; a rather eclectic mix but it did the trick.

The day after Thanksgiving is called 'Black Friday'. Sounds ominous, but it's just the equivalent of Boxing Day Sales, although I think I should just state this now: I. Hate. Shopping. I can't help it. Don't get me wrong, I love New Things, but the horrendous act of trawling around a rammed CBD, with people elbowing left right and centre to get at 'bargains' like pigs in a trough is not my idea of a fun way to spend a holiday. As far as I'm concerned the internet is the only way to buy stuff. But for millions of Americans this is the time to converge on shops, and the retailers encourage this by dangling carrots in front of the populace in the form of 'doorbuster' sales. It's the busiest time to be on American roads. According to today's news $8.9 billion dollars were spent in the stores yesterday. A quote from one retailer was "I think we're feeling very happy right now." No shit! Black Friday also, apparently, marks the start of the "Holiday Season" (Christmas to you and me). I went in a hardware shop today, November 25th, and they were playing Christmas music, and the Father Christmas adverts have started appearing on TV. But it doesn't make sense because in some places the pumpkins are still out! Argh, I'm suffering from Season Confusion! Is it Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Diwali, or what? I could forgive a shop for playing Christmas music during Advent, but... actually what am I saying? There is never ever an excuse ever for the rubbish musak that we're forced to listen to every Christmas. At least I haven't heard Slade yet.

Anyway, I have my first Leicester Drunk visitor this week! Ade must have been so tempted by the Redbones Beef Jerk that he's coming out to visit, and I've already been accused of being a "boyfriend stealer" by Sarah. Don't worry, I'll look after him, mwah ha ha ha...