Christmas Lunch Report
Well, yesterday’s annual Christmas Lunch for the School of Physics & Astronomy at Cardiff University went very well, with only the one member of staff having to be taken to hospital in an ambulance.
Prior to that we had the traditional meal at Aberdare Hall, following by the traditional pool competition at the Mackintosh Hotel, and the traditional karaoke upstairs in the Flute and Tankard. I got home about 2am, whereupon I remembered that Monday nights are when I have to put the rubbish out.
These occasions are a reminder of the true Christmas message of depravity and excess which, in my opinion, is increasingly lost by the regrettable encroachment of too much crass religion.
After the lunch, our Head of School gave an inspirational speech to the assembled throng in which he summed up our feelings for the festive season by quoting George Bernard Shaw:
Christmas is forced on a reluctant and disgusted nation by the shopkeepers and the press: on its own merits it would wither and shrivel in the fiery breath of universal hatred; and anyone who looked back to it would be turned into a pillar of greasy sausages.
Happy Christmas!
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In the Dark 
December 20, 2017 at 11:42 am
Jethro Tull of course!
And I hope this year’s victim is OK.
December 20, 2017 at 12:47 pm
To explain, one of the workshop staff fell on the way to the Flute & Tankard and hit his head so that he lost consciousness for several minutes. He had recovered consciousness by the team the ambulance arrived, but the ambulance team thought it was wise to take him to hospital as a precaution as there were other medical issues in his case. He was kept in overnight for observation but left the following morning and is OK.
December 20, 2017 at 12:30 pm
In the 1650s Oliver Cromwell briefly outlawed midwinter Christmas celebrations, which were associated with the Catholic calendar (and its many saints’ days), and with drunkenness. In the 19th century, Christmas celebrations became popular in the English-speaking world for a combination of three reasons: the novelty of photographs of Queen Victoria and Albert celebrating it (Christmas cards quickly caught on); renewed Anglican ritualism promoted by the high-church ‘Oxford Movement’; and Charles Dickens’ popular tale, A Christmas Carol. Today this celebration has mutated into a secular materialist orgy of over-spending and eating and drinking too much (exactly what concerned Cromwell!)
December 20, 2017 at 2:02 pm
Apparently not:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_tree#Britain