Remotes at ready for Santa season

The annual Christmas in the Park will screen on TV2 at 6pm on Sunday.

I read an unsettling thing the other day and it was about the old chap who pops in once a year to provide more stuff to clutter the bedrooms of children all over the world.
Santa Claus.

It was all to do with writing to ask Santa what you would like for Christmas.

In the olden days, before Santa brought us even a black and white television set, kids would address their appeals to Santa Claus, The North Pole...and with a two-pence stamp affixed would pop it in a mailing box.

The Post Office had it sussed, and they would collect such letters and (I think I'm right here) the kid would get a card from Santa back.

Whether they got the train set, the dinghy, the full collection of James Bond Dinky Toys and a pet eagle they asked for is another thing altogether.

Then I spotted that kids today could touch base with the old chap via a computer link which has been set up for them.

Contact Santa via some sort of digital online Facebook type of thing?

While I accept we are now firmly embraced by the age of the computer, and that it has some remarkable features and advantages, I can't subscribe to the notion that a bloke who still uses reindeer to tow his carriage (no Audis or Fords in his garage) and who has never bought a new outfit in several hundred years would want to buy a computer.

I mean, he has a senior elf called Grandy Coinsorter who does his books for him and another veteran member of the elf crew called Smarten Upplease to roster the packers and sorters who assemble the parcels.

Yet someone has installed Wi-Fi or whatever at the heart of the North Pole so kids can now tap out their pleas to him rather than pick up a pen to continue the fine art of writing a letter.

I suppose, like Christmas itself, it had to come.

As do the sights of Santa aboard that other electrical communication device which is, like computers, forever changing.

Eight years ago a flat screen television was one which had been crushed by a falling wall unit.

Yep, the Christmas shows are starting to appear.

And of course radio will be getting in on it.

Prepare to once again be audibly confronted by the festive tones of the usual suspects like Snoopy's Christmas and Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer and Michael Jackson insisting he saw mummy kissing Santa Claus.

And maybe we'll hear Slade doing the marvellous Merry Christmas Everybody or Shakin' Stevens' Merry Christmas Everyone.

And even The Pogues' Fairy Tale of New York will get an airing, and I believe it is one of the marvels of Christmas that lead singer Shane MacGowan, who drank frightening amounts of alcohol and toyed with heavy drugs, is still alive and living in Dublin.

One of the finest Yuletide yodels is by John Lennon who of course mixes the joy of the festive season with the reality of the world it descends upon when he sparks into So This Is Christmas.

The second verse wraps it for John - "And so this is Christmas, for weak and for strong, for rich and the poor ones, the world is so wrong... and so happy Christmas, for black and for white, for yellow and red ones, let's stop all the fight".

Indeed, and so this is Christmas... and television tells us so.
From Friday there is a four-night succession of Christmas-themed programmes, so yeah, it is getting under way just fine.

In this first of several entrees to come over the next 12 days we have two movies, a musical variety and surprise surprise... a cooking show.

● Fred Claus, TV2 at 7pm Friday: There's no end to what the legend of Santa can produce. Here we have his slightly criminal brother returning to the North Pole to live with him.

● How the Grinch Stole Christmas, TV3 at 7pm Saturday: When I first saw this I was left convinced Jim Carrey had been taking something slightly dodgy between takes. He is remarkable as the Grinch and this is a fast and furious and funny film.

● Christmas in the Park, TV2 at 6pm Sunday: The annual musical variety outing up there in Auckland which is hosted by Jason Gunn.

● Simply Nigella Christmas Special, Prime at 7.30pm Monday: Here we go, the first of what I reckon will be a queue of "what to cook at Christmastime" shows.

ON THE BOX

● Qi, Prime at 9.45pm tonight: I think it is fair to say this is one of those shows which would not hit the mark were the host to be replaced.

Oh it would still go on but it just would not be the same and would not draw the once-healthy viewing figures... I think Top Gear illustrated that. And to a degree it's a little like the otherwise very capable Andrew O'Keefe running The Chase, a-la the Aussie version.

It's a Bradley Walsh spot that one.

So this delightful and insightful show is the domain of Stephen Fry, a man of words, a man of wisdom and a man of great humour.

Always an enjoyable treat, and this is a double episode.

● Billy T James, Maori TV at 9.30pm Thursday: I briefly met Billy T James back in the late 1980s while he was visiting here on some sort of meet and greet the people type tour of the land.

I remember him as smiling and approachable to the large numbers of people who called to see him, but he looked tired.

He was okay for a chat and then had to dash off to the next gathering. About a year later he had a heart attack, and the subsequent heart problems in the wake of that took his life at the age of just 43.

It still saddens me because he was exceptional.

A great comedian, great actor, great singer.

A true spark, so for anyone unfamiliar with the often un-PC approach of Billy T, check this out. Bloke is a legend.