On Sunday afternoon, within hours of the last Bonfire Night events in some parts of the country, Santa arrived (accompanied by several of the cast of Coronation Street) at the Prince Bishop Shopping Centre in Durham. Having been, in my time, the Prince Bishop Shopping Centre Santa, I really do have to wonder just how early Christmas is going to begin next year, or the year after that.
The post-Blair cultural confidence is of course welcome: Britain has at last felt free to keep Halloween, Guy Fawkes and Remembrance Sunday again without an unspoken but very obvious fear that they might be suppressed at any moment; it is as if a foreign occupation has finally come to an end, and no doubt Christmas will be the icing on the cake. But we should at least get one thing out of the way before we move on to the next.
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