{"id":167,"date":"2004-12-22T15:48:20","date_gmt":"2004-12-22T15:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/?p=167"},"modified":"2004-12-22T15:48:20","modified_gmt":"2004-12-22T15:48:20","slug":"festive-fleet-street-round-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"Festive Fleet Street Round Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>In the grand tradition of digests everywhere, and with hours of free time in my hands, I have read the festive news stories so you don&#8217;t have to.&nbsp; The following highlights should contain conversation starters\/stoppers, thought-provoking insight and the odd smile.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christmas Credentials:<\/strong> Is Xmas the same as Christmas?&nbsp; Was it the invention of lazy shopkeepers and headline writers or the thrifty scribes of illuminated manuscripts?&nbsp; Emma Griffith&#8217;s piece <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/magazine\/4097755.stm\">Why get cross about Xmas?<\/a>&nbsp;over at <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/\">BBC News<\/a> explores the views and arguments surrounding the &#8216;X&#8217; word.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fall into winter:<\/strong> Martin Wainwright writes about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/christmas2004\/story\/0,15386,1377896,00.html\">yuletide accidents<\/a>&nbsp;in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/\">The Guardian<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;Over 6,000 people were taken to hospital in Britain on December 25 last year after stabbing themselves on pine needles and&nbsp;falling whilst hanging decorations.&nbsp; Incredibly, in 2003, tinsel cuts&nbsp;and Christmas tree light trips&nbsp;accounted for some 350 emergency admissions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>All white on the night?:<\/strong>&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/\">Times Online<\/a> journo Jenny Booth obviously drew the short straw in today&#8217;s editorial meeting, catching the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timesonline.co.uk\/article\/0,,2-1412536,00.html\">inevitable &#8216;will it snow?&#8217; assignment<\/a>.&nbsp; The answer for a large part of the UK seems to be a resounding yes, so much so that the bookies have shortened the odds to minimise potential payouts.<\/p>\n<p><strong>All wet on the night?:<\/strong>&nbsp;Strangely and almost predictably, amongst the inevitable titilation over at the Times downmarket stablemate <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thesun.co.uk\/\">The Sun<\/a>, the travel section&#8217;s Lisa Minot predicts a mild, wet &amp; snowless Christmas &#8211; before going on to promote snowy holidays in Scotland, Switzerland and Milton Keynes.&nbsp; Yes, Milton Keynes &#8211; apparently, one of three &#8216;Christmas all year round&#8217; venues with snowballs, tobogganing and skaiting facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere: The Independent profiles &#8216;bootiful&#8217; <a href=\"http:\/\/news.independent.co.uk\/people\/profiles\/story.jsp?story=595307\">Bernard Matthews, the UK&#8217;s very own turkey king<\/a>&nbsp;and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/\">The Mail<\/a> carries union warnings of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/pages\/live\/articles\/news\/news.html?in_article_id=330224&amp;in_page_id=1770\">mistletoe-inspired sexual harassment<\/a> at office parties.&nbsp; However, my own home town rag, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.herts-essex-news.co.uk\/mercury\/news\/\">Hoddesdon &amp; Broxbourne Mercury<\/a> seem to have a little trouble finding anything other than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.herts-essex-news.co.uk\/mercury\/news\/story.asp?id=180939\">police reports<\/a> to fill their pages, as the rather scant and self-promotional&nbsp;&#8216;Top Toys For Christmas&#8217; piece snapped&nbsp;below shows.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bignoseduglyguy.com\/mercurystory.jpg\" align=\"baseline\" border=\"2\"><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"1\">my lo-fi ears are listening to <a href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZSearch.woa\/wa\/advancedSearchResults?songTerm=Strict Machine&amp;artistTerm=Goldfrapp\">Strict Machine<\/a>\/<a href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZSearch.woa\/wa\/advancedSearchResults?artistTerm=Goldfrapp\">Goldfrapp<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the grand tradition of digests everywhere, and with hours of free time in my hands, I have read the festive news stories so you don&#8217;t have to.&nbsp; The following highlights should contain conversation starters\/stoppers, thought-provoking insight and the odd smile. Christmas Credentials: Is Xmas the same as Christmas?&nbsp; Was it the invention of lazy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}