Sideswipe

Mixed seasonal messages from signs at the intersection of Halsey St and Victoria St, Auckland.

** Sideswipe will be skiving for the next two weeks but will generously provide a selection of the best and worst of Sideswipe from 2002-2004 for your reading pleasure. Merry Christmas. * *

Worst TV Christmas specials

The Lost Star Trek Christmas Episode: A Most Illogical Holiday (1968). Although never broadcast, it was made and went something like this : The pointy-eared Mr Spock is hailed as a messiah in a wintry world where elves toil for a mysterious master, aka Santa, who ends up killing Ensign Jones and attacks the Enterprise in his sleigh. As Scotty works to keep the power flowing to the shields, Kirk and Bones infiltrate Santa's headquarters. With the help of the comely and lonely Mrs Claus, Kirk is led to the heart of the workshop, where he learns the truth: Santa is himself a pawn to a master-computer. Kirk engages the master-computer in a battle of wits, demanding that the computer explain how it is physically possible for Santa to deliver gifts to all the children in the universe in a single night. The master-computer, confronted with this computational anomaly, self-destructs. Santa, freed from mental enslavement, releases the elves and begins a new, democratic society.

A Muppet Christmas with Zbigniew Brzezinski (1978): The Muppets joined President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser for an evening of fun, song and anti-communist rhetoric. While those who remember the show recall the pairing of Brzezinski and Miss Piggy for a duet of Winter Wonderland as winsomely enchanting, the scenes where the Administration heavy-hitter explains the true meaning of Christmas to an assemblage of Muppets dressed as Afghan mujahideen were incongruous and disturbing even then.

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A Canadian Christmas with David Cronenberg (1986): Canadian horror director Cronenberg (Scanners and The Fly) tried to adapt his genre to the season. In this telemovie, Santa (Michael Ironside) makes an emergency landing in the Northwest Territories, where he is exposed to a previously unknown virus after being attacked by a violent moose. The virus causes Santa to develop both a large, tooth-bearing orifice in his belly and a lustful hunger for human flesh, which he states by graphically devouring Canadian celebrities Bryan Adams, Dan Ackroyd and Gordie Howe on national television. Music by Neil Young.

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Noam Chomsky: Deconstructing Christmas (1998): This PBS/WGBH special featured social commentator Chomsky sitting at a desk, explaining how the development of the commercial Christmas season directly relates to the loss of individual freedoms in the United States and the subjugation of indigenous people in Southeast Asia.

(Source: written by John Scalzi - link provided below) 

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Appetite-killer

Ray Waru writes: "This may sound like Christmas humbug, but I have become alarmed by the number of portraits of turkeys that have appeared in the press recently. Cuisine magazine had a particularly poignant picture associated with a story about eating them and the Herald has had not one but two close-up shots of birds that clearly had expectations of a long, carefree summer ahead. At this time of the year could I suggest that representations of Christmas be limited to trussed birds, on a dinner plate, accompanied by appropriate condiments and seasonal legumes. Otherwise the sensitive among us could be driven to the tofu counter. Never eat anything with a face, certainly not something that smiles."

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Ian Dawson of Rotorua writes: "One of the five road safety reminders highlighted by Inspector John Kelly, "Wear a seatbelt and make sure all passengers, including children, are restrained correctly", has obviously not struck a chord with some people. This week I witnessed a vehicle being driven in a busy city street with a young child perched on the driver's lap, aiding the driver with the steering wheel. The vehicle pulled into a parallel park adjacent to where I was standing, a look of absolute glee on the child's face. A Christmas treat, perhaps?"

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Stand by for a long walk

Christmas killjoy Megan Blatchford-Peck, of MindOverBody, a website-driven programme that focuses on changing eating habits, would like us all to know that a person who weights 65kg would have to walk for 15 minutes burn the kilojoules from one average chocolate.

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Christmas cracker jokes
 
What do you call someone who is scared of Santa?
Claustrophobic.

What do you call Santa's helpers?
Subordinate clauses.