Christmas

[AlcoholBrazil]

[Ralph]

With Sonic the Hedgehog & a game called Greendog.

[Basualdo]

Loath it.

Sorry Ralph, nothing to do with you or Sonic the hedgehog, just Christmas in general.

[Ralph]

Loath it.

Sorry Ralph, nothing to do with you or Sonic the hedgehog, just Christmas in general.

I generally enjoy it. Not this year though. Got the worst news about my dad’s health a couple of weeks ago, pretty much out of the blue. No point moping. Impossible to pretend everything’s normal though.

[kevin04]

Christmas in my early 20s was amazing. Meeting pals - most didn't leave town, but the ones that did came home, we'd go out and catch up on Christmas Eve, wake up hungover on Christmas Day before a wee Buck's Fizz and some grub and then back on the bevie at home before meeting pals about 7pm for the pubs opening and then the local pub/late license til 2am, stagger home and then up on Boxing Day for a pal's birthday and a full-card of fitba - the ones who could be bothered or followed a SPFL team , we would go our separate club ways (mix of Celtic, Rangers, Dundee Utd, Dundee, Hibs and even a Caley Thistle fan - who'd travel 4hrs up there) then meet up together at 5pm and get blitzed again, especially if Caley were in the central belt would be beneficial for Iain.

Then depending on the turn of the year, if the 27th was a Friday/Saturday that might be it until the 3rd of January ; but thankfully it was a few days rest til Hogmanay.

I think in 2009/2010 I drank about 12/14 days of the Christmas/New Year. #humblebrag ; but no bullshit, and mind feeling awful til about the 10th of January. A favourite was 6 years ago when I was 27/28 came back from 3 months in NZ, to a snowy Scotland and just had a brilliant time, ending up at 'random' (no, they really were) parties.

Now, we're all married/long-term partners and very, very close to being closer to our 40s than our 30s (33/34) ; 95% of my close pals have weans/bairns and I think we might meet for 3/4 beers on the Boxing Day but that'll be it.

Still, I love Christmas. I love going back and seeing the family and friends/relatives. I've got a mixed bunch of pals - some musos ; some football ones ; some a bit of both ; some none - and always find something to do. My version of the big girl and I bought our tree today and its up, with decorations, and just its one of the best days of the year, going out and finding a wee modest tree, doing him up and making an IKEA gingerbread house. The wee things in life.

[caledonian1]

Christmas is just a made up festival initially created by so-called christians who decided what time of the year it should be. Then by commercial companies to sell there wares. Santa Claus always wore a green suit, until Coca Cola decided to make it red to match their logo's colour.

It's a shitfest, except for a tin of celebrations which I like, and any Marx brothers films on the telly at that time of the year.

have to pretty much agree with all of that. Is it just me or did christmas seem to begin quite a bit earlier this year.....maybe it will eventually endup in september when I believe it may have been historically


Anyway ToRmAto......I think the description of you location as "Royal Deeside" is also blatant commercialisation. maybe you are happy with that and own a tartan tatt shop in Ballater or possibly you are the twatt in Dinnet who flies the Union flag. Personally I am glad I am a Donside man and do not pander to the Royals

[ToRmAtO]

Anyway ToRmAto......I think the description of you location as "Royal Deeside" is also blatant commercialisation. maybe you are happy with that and own a tartan tatt shop in Ballater or possibly you are the twatt in Dinnet who flies the Union flag. Personally I am glad I am a Donside man and do not pander to the Royals

I do not pander to Royals, but they do employ several hundred people in the area; furthermore the amount of secondary jobs created by tourism, cafes, hotels, gift shops etc etc would put that number into the thousands. So they inadvertently do good in this part of world where there isn't much else bar three small distilleries and local small businesses serving the community.

[Carlos J]

One for me, Sub, Reg and maybe a few others. Chas Hodges died in September and as per the 'A Celebrity has Died' thread, we discussed 'Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees Up' which Channel 5 have had on a couple of times a few years back: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29998&start=315#p1295913

Obviously hoping it would be on this year as a tirbute. Well, I've scanned C5s listings until New Year and can't see it anywhere. Fucking disprectful bastards. I'll watch it again on youtube. 'The Sideboard Song' at the beginning is magnificence, both music and audience:

[subsub]

One for me, Sub, Reg and maybe a few others. Chas Hodges died in September and as per the 'A Celebrity has Died' thread, we discussed 'Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees Up' which Channel 5 have had on a couple of times a few years back: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29998&start=315#p1295913

Obviously hoping it would be on this year as a tirbute. Well, I've scanned C5s listings until New Year and can't see it anywhere. Fucking disprectful bastards. I'll watch it again on youtube. 'The Sideboard Song' at the beginning is magnificence, both music and audience:

Yep, love this, Carlos. As you say, that first song is spellbindingly good – Chas & Dave were too often dismissed as knees-up-Muvva-Brown merchants, but they are/were fantastic musicians.

[Carlos J]

Indeed, Sub. I'm going to write to OFCOM and my MP about Channel 5s lack of respect.

[AlcoholBrazil]

[m4rkb]

One for me, Sub, Reg and maybe a few others. Chas Hodges died in September and as per the 'A Celebrity has Died' thread, we discussed 'Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees Up' which Channel 5 have had on a couple of times a few years back: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29998&start=315#p1295913

Obviously hoping it would be on this year as a tirbute. Well, I've scanned C5s listings until New Year and can't see it anywhere. Fucking disprectful bastards. I'll watch it again on youtube. 'The Sideboard Song' at the beginning is magnificence, both music and audience:

Yep, love this, Carlos. As you say, that first song is spellbindingly good – Chas & Dave were too often dismissed as knees-up-Muvva-Brown merchants, but they are/were fantastic musicians.

Planned on seeing them at the Robin2 in Bilston this year. Always a sell out miles in advance so their appeal speaks for itself.
SAdly I'll not get the chance now so will watch the vid.

[Roddy]

Bread and circuses indeed.

[Roddy]

Jews kill a Jew and then 100 year later a Jew tells peope that the Jew they killed was the greatest Jew of them all.

[subsub]

Planned on seeing them at the Robin2 in Bilston this year. Always a sell out miles in advance so their appeal speaks for itself.
SAdly I'll not get the chance now so will watch the vid.

This is a lovely tribute from Dave

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/ ... s-and-dave

Chas Hodges remembered by Dave Peacock
28 December 1943 – 22 September 2018
One half of the beloved musical duo Chas and Dave remembers his best friend of more than 50 years, a happy-go-lucky but determined man who loved writing, playing – and fishing

The first time I met Chas he was thumbing a lift home to his girlfriend’s house after missing the bus. I was with my friend, Brian Juniper, whom I’d known since I was six – Brian stopped, because he and Chas had gone to senior school together. We dropped him off at his girlfriend, Joan’s – she’s still his wife now – and I saw his records there, and it was all the stuff I liked. Bluegrass like Flatt and Scruggs, and Jerry Lee Lewis. That was 1963. We struck up a musical friendship then that never ended.

We didn’t play together for years, though, because we were both bassists, and Chas was having hits with [British R&B band] Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers [managed by Brian Epstein, and the Beatles’ support act on their final European tour]. But at parties together we’d grab a banjo and go on the piano and start singing old songs. Our relations kept saying we should get together but we didn’t take any notice. We had identical east London families with a singing musical tradition, who knew all of these old songs that many people don’t remember any more, other than the ones we recorded and stopped from getting extinct. We’d all get together every Christmas, our families. I really miss that.

Chas was the most happy-go-lucky bloke you’d ever meet. I never knew him lose his temper all those years. Not once. He was a determined type of bloke too – if he put his mind to something he would do it. When he passed his driving test he couldn’t find the car key, and he’d only been home from the test 15 minutes. But he had this bar of soap out of the back of his house – he’d had the foresight to push the key imprint into it – then he got a bit of metal, copied the imprint in the bar of soap, put it in the ignition and it started straightaway. He was clever like that. Such a clever musician too. A sense of timing like no one you knew. Especially singing the chorus to Rabbit. The timing in that is a different thing. I remember Cliff Richard saying to us: “How the hell do you do that?” But we were telepathic with each other, really. We only had to look at each other to know when the end of a song would come.

Chas really loved gigging. He’d play anywhere – he was a music addict. I’d go around his house when he didn’t know I was coming, and I’d hear him playing inside. He couldn’t stop. But the funny thing is, I think we only had five rehearsals. That is literally true. We used to write a song, forget about it, then get a gig and just get into it. If we made a mistake we’d rectify it as we went along.

We drove a million miles together. Ate a million meals together. I could travel in the car with him for three hours and not say a word – you can do that when you’re so comfortable with somebody. I could phone him up with an idea for a song at two o’clock in the morning and he’d be interested, and vice versa.

And Chas didn’t stop writing, even when he was ill. He rewrote Sling Your Hook to make it about his cancer, and put it on our last album [2018’s A Little Bit of Us], which we recorded in Brian Juniper’s studio. He wrote a song with Paul Whitehouse recently for the new Only Fools and Horses musical. And when we played on Jools Holland in the summer, we played the last song Chas ever wrote, Wonder Where He Is Now, about fishing with his mate when he was a kid. We’re putting it out as a single soon. I thought that’d be a nice tribute for him.

The last time we saw each other we went fishing. He’d seemed to pick up a bit, started to eat properly, and I thought, hello, he’s on the up now. But sadly, it wasn’t to be. We used to have a laugh fishing. Chas used to have a little private fishing lake, and we’d go there, take our little sandwich boxes, and Joan would come along and make us a cup of tea. The last picture I’ve got of us together, we’ve got fishing rods in our hands. I’m glad I’ve got that.

I always say to people, Chas and Dave weren’t just a band, they were a way of life. Our wives were best friends – I lost my wife nine years ago, to cancer as well – and I’m godfather to his and Joan’s three children. We were so intertwined, not just in music. Every aspect of our lives. We were just together in everything.