"Does your Granny always tell you that the old songs are the best?"

[miss_squiddy]

Right. So there are 168 hours in a week. If you minus the hours spent at work (38) and the time spent sleeping (56), that leaves 74 hours of 'free' time which could feasibly be filled with audio-visual stimulation to one degree or another.

I estimate that Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody must be played on average once every 2 hours throughout November and once an hour throughout December.^[1]

Thats... (74*4=148)+(74*4*2=296) ...444 plays per year.

Given that Merry Christmas Everybody was released in 1973 and that I wasn't born until 1978, I estimate that I have heard that blinking song 11,988 times in my life.^[2]


No wonder I'm sick of it.

^[1] ...Within range of me. And I'm counting hearing any part of the song as a 'play'. So that includes annoying repetitive radio jingles, adverts for compilation CDs, 100 Greatest Christmassy Moments programmes and shopping trips where every single shop is playing dodgy Christmas tunes. So no, I wouldn't expect to hear Noddy Holder crowing 'Iiiiit's Chriiiistmas!' on the hour every hour like some demented cuckoo clock, but I reckon all the airplay he takes up at the end of the month must even things up...
^[2] Yeah, I know my working out is shoddy. Dammit Jim - I'm a historian, not a mathematician!

Comments

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Be thankful it's not played at work. I have mental scars from working at Gateway deli counter and having it piped on a loop whilst I served sliced luncheoun tongue.

gateway?

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

I thought they sold PCs - what are they doing selling meat? Or am I getting hideously mixed-up?

Re: gateway?

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

It's the supermarket chain that morped seamlessly into Somerfield. Think even scummier shops, staff and clientelle... in dark greens.

iiiiiiiiiit's christmas

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

I don't have a TV. This means I haven't heard that song in about four or five years. In fact I'd barely know it was christmas if it wasn't for the decorations in the neighbourhood and mentions on friend's livejournals. Radio Four doesn't overdo it on seasonal celebration, apart from on the days themselves, when we get loads of goodies in the forms of new adaptations and comedies and the like.

Re: iiiiiiiiiit's christmas

[miss_squiddy]

Don't they let you out any more? It's EVERYWHERE!

Re: iiiiiiiiiit's christmas

[sheridanwilde.livejournal.com]

No money + no friends (within a lots-of-miles radius) + broken arm = no social life whatsoever :(

Re: iiiiiiiiiit's christmas

[miss_squiddy]

Awww. Boo.

Re: iiiiiiiiiit's christmas

[recursived.livejournal.com]

Yep, not having a telly, not listening to Radio 1/Commercial Radio, and not spending too much time in the kinds of shops that play Christmas songs on a loop six weeks ahead of the actual day, all of these mean a distinct lack of bludgeoning santastic audio torture. There are advantages to being a troglodyte you know...

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

I am happy to say that I have never heard this song.

[mog-warbeast.livejournal.com]

I am so spending the last 2 months of every year in Toronto from now on!

If only I could, dammit...

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

You sure about that? It's awfully damn cold over here right now.....

[miss_squiddy]

Oh wow. You are *so* lucky!

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

;) It would seem there are benefits to living on the other side of the ocean.

[miss_squiddy]

I'm sure you have your very own dodgy Canadian christmas songs?

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

Very probably. I think Gordon Lightfoot has done a Christmas album, and I'm almost sure that Celine Dion has. I try very hard to avoid places that might play Celine Dion.

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

There *is* a Chaos Engine version in existence... with a 20 piece samba orchestra solo, no less...

[50-ft-queenie.livejournal.com]

My first instinct was to scoff that you must be joking, but I have a sinking feeling you're not. It *is* you, after all. ;P

[miss_squiddy]

Let's hear it then!

[lee-chaos.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, it's in a carrier bag... somewhere. it will be unearthed in the great spring clean of 2006 but might cause an avalanche to hunt for it now. it also features rog from leechWoman on dustbin & washing-machine and Mark Eris scratch mixing over the top, and goes on for about 30 minutes. I'm at the bar for the 2nd half of it...

[miss_squiddy]

Sounds... er... excellent!

[panzer-attack.livejournal.com]

But it is the bestest Christmas song ever! (perhaps after Ring Out Solstice Bells by Jethro Tull)

[miss_squiddy]

*THWAP*

*Bangs head repeatedly on desk*

[nibber.livejournal.com]

the pogues track is the best xmas song.

and i gotta hear the chaos engine version!!!!!

[miss_squiddy]

'Christmas at Ground Zero' by Weird Al Yankovic.

"I'll duck and cover
with my yuletide lover
underneath that mushroom cloud"

Ace.