Writer's Block: Traditional Pursuits aka They Keep Killing Santa

[wytchcroft]

[Error: unknown template qotd] Ah the old traditions - (insert spontaneous Topol dancing) well they come and go... and it's always sad to lose a favourite. In the UK there are many traditions that are swept away by the years - progress - fashions - whim - politics or just expense. One such tradition was the annual 'Let's shoot the sh!t out of Santa' that for many years kept Manchester a-giggle.

The Santa in question - a large inflatable chap - suffered years of indignity until being replaced by what can only be described as a Japanese Giant Killer Robot. A killer, if only in the sense that the current needed to power the thing means draining the supply from several other small European cities - that's Mancuians for you, put one down a manhole and you can have free power for a year, if you don't mind never seeing Naupland again.

Personally i miss the first Santa - clinging to the spires of the town hall for dear life like an unhappy King Kong- and quite often to be heard farting air noisily through various bullet holes. Eventually Santa v.01 burst from its hold completely and like a Pink Floyd pig was last scene flying at speed out of the North of England. 

Santa v.02 was friendly looking - but it didn't stop him from getting the same gleeful treatment as his predecessor. 

Santa v.03 - though it's fun to watch Christmas revellers, hit by the strobe effects, fall into epileptic spasms and psychosis - lacks, oh - i don't know... charm perhaps.


  
santa no.2                                 santa clausv.03 

Here is a link to the 'official' euphemistic version of the story - note, even the newspaper can barely keep a straight face.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/229/229138_town_hall_santas_last_christmas.html
 

Comments

[preyforhuntress.livejournal.com]

I miss Christmas caroling. I used to do that in high school when I lived in Vegas.

[stoshagownozad.livejournal.com]

Funny customs! Shiny Santas!
Shooting Santa... and getting seizures due to strobo killer!!!!
we here are much more moderate. we just installing rockets in the middle of the front yard and: bah! bah! babah!

[stoshagownozad.livejournal.com]

potato latkes?

this is an Yddish word and Yddish meal:) comes from Belorussia actually! How did it became a Christmas custom?

[charlie-bz.livejournal.com]

You've just burst my anglophile bubble! Huge inflatable Santa next to Big Ben? Somehow I thought you Brits weren't into the inflatable Santa thing. :)

Also, we're putting an inflatable Santa in our front yard. It's embarassing but the things we do for our children is downright scary.

[irishunchik.livejournal.com]

we dont have santa claus (this fat man in red smth=))
instead we have our Father Frost =) and we like to recite rhymes standıng on the stool ın the mıddle of the room.
and Father Frost sonra gives surprises from his magic sack=)))