Santa Cthulhu is coming to town

If you go down Mr. Woods' today...
Then head a few feet east and look in the window of the nearby bookshop...

Despite the stupid half-illuminated trees, the nasty roadworks and the combined smells of desperation and chips the Grassmarket is one of the city's more pleasant areas to potter around shopwise as Christmas looms. Shops decorate themselves but there isn't the same sense of if-I-hear-that-fecking-Slade-song-one-more-time AAAAAAAAAGH living hell that the more traditional shopping areas excel at creating. This ace little evil octopoid thing might hopefully inspire a few passing parents to warn their children "That's who'll come instead of Father Christmas if you've not been a good boy" to get them to stop whining about which particular brand of bleeping plastic garbage they want. Any parents of youngsters have my sympathy; as sensible people you obviously despise the obnoxious retail horror masquerading as a season of goodwill but you have to participate to make it a magical and special time for the little ones. HAHAHAHAHAAA. Just grit your teeth and bear it and remember that last year some shops started selling Mini Eggs on Boxing Day as soon as they were able to clear their shelves of seasonal crackers, puddings, pies, cakes and wrapping paper.

Incidentally... as a colleague was reading of the exciting things happening for St. Andrew's Day (what happened to the campaign to get it made into a public holiday? I stopped getting emails about it when I blocked that address because they started sending me spam about saving the Scottish Regiments) it struck me that as an atheist I would be obliged to not celebrate it on the grounds of not agreeing with the whole religion business by which saints are deemed saintly and subsequently beatified. What did St. Andrew achieve, anyway? Other popular patron saints got rid of snakes which weren't there anyway, killed fictional monsters and magicked hills into being. Maybe St. Andrew discovered that if you stuck some hollow plant stems into a sheep's stomach and inflated it that you could make an hideous wailing noise capable of being carried over great distances. It would certainly go some way towards explaining why he was crucified in such an undiginified position...