- Cliff Richard: Mistletoe and Wine
- Kylie & Jason: Especially for You
- Erasure: Crackers International
- Angry Anderson: Suddenly
- Inner City: Good Life
- Bros: Cat Among the Pigeons / Silent Night
- Status Quo: Burning Bridges (On and Off and On Again)
- Phil Collins: Two Hearts
- U2: Angel of Harlem
- Petula Clark: Downtown '88
- New Order: Fine Time
- Rick Astley: Take Me to Your Heart
- Neneh Cherry: Buffalo Stance
- Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
- The Four Tops: Loco in Acapulco
- Bananarama: Nathan Jones
- Bomb the Bass featuring Maureen: Say a Little Prayer
- Robin Beck: First Time
- Kim Wilde: Four Letter Word
- a-ha: You Are the One
- Londonbeat: 9 a.m. (The Comfort Zone)
- Chris de Burgh: Missing You
- Bon Jovi: Born to Be My Baby
- Tiffany: Radio Romance
- INXS: Need You Tonight
- Pet Shop Boys: Left to My Own Devices
- Freiheit: Keeping the Dream Alive
- Shakin' Stevens: True Love
- Hithouse: Jack to the Sound of the Underground
- Alexander O'Neal: The Christmas Song / Thank You for a Good Year
- Humanoid: Stakker Humanoid
- Annie Lennox & Al Green: Put a Little Love in Your Heart
- Traveling Wilburys: Handle with Care
- The Beach Boys: Kokomo
- Reggae Philharmonic Orchestra: Minnie the Moocher
- Enya: Evening Falls
- George Michael: Kissing a Fool
- Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine: Rhythm Is Gonna Get You
- A Tribe of Toffs: John Kettley Is a Weatherman
- Natalie Cole: I Live for Your Love
~~~~~
I wrote a couple weeks' back that everyone seemed depressingly resigned to the dreadful Mistletoe and Wine being on top until Christmas. I had nothing but contempt for the two previous chart toppers but there was always the hope that they'd be dethroned; with this, however, it was inevitable that it was going nowhere. At the time it was just rotten and cheesy, but now I hear it as a self-righteous wannabe holiday carol exhorting all the stuff about the season that means precisely nothing to me. In effect, Cliff Richard is simply listing by rote all the clichés of an old fashioned family Christmas with none of the reality of the day. A sweet observation like "Does your granny always tell you that the old songs are the best / Then she's up and rock 'n' rollin' with the rest"? Nope. How about a little "You mean you forgot cranberries too"? Nah. This is a straight up idealistic Christmas and I couldn't stand it. The music fan in me couldn't wait for January even if the Christmas mark in me was as excited as ever.
But it was a different sort of excitement. As I mentioned last week, we were embarking on a lengthy Christmas holiday spent on the road. Back from Lincoln just a day and we were once again spurning our tiny Laindon shack, this time heading east. Somewhere near Bristol I drifted off to sleep and when I awoke I noticed an over-abundance of "L's", "W's" and "Y's" in the place names. We were in Wales.
Passing by Cardiff and then through Swansea, we eventually made it to Mumbles where we'd be spending the next two nights. I have no idea how or why my parents chose this charmingly nondescript town on a bay as our base for our trip to Cymru but it proved a good one: we were within easy access of the gorgeous eastern Welsh coast but we were in a town big enough to ensure that some services were still available. As lovely a town as Tenby was to drive through, I daresay we might have starved had we elected to stay there - although that's assuming its no doubt modest selection of B&B's and guesthouses weren't as boarded up as its shops and teahouses. It quickly dawned on us that we had descended upon south Wales in the middle of its off-peak season. My mum was hoping we could stop somewhere for a cup of tea or coffee but our search through the villages of Pembrokeshire proved fruitless. My sister and I noticed an awful lot of storefronts with posters for Gino Ginelli ice cream1: it was as if summer came to an end and entire towns just came to a halt, awaiting the hordes of tourists who weren't us.
That was the downside to having an entire county to ourselves; on the plus side we had an entire county to ourselves. Parking along the coast, we ended up at a beach that was a far cry from those narrow, pebble-strewn strands we'd encountered in Southend, Dover and Brighton. This was a proper beach, the sand was pale and soft, the shore expansive. All I wanted to do was run and jump and that's exactly what I did. A lone windsurfer bravely took on the rough Atlantic waves but he was our only company. Returning to Mumbles, we eventually found a place to eat and walked along the esplanade. Even here on the outskirts of the city of Swansea we were in relative solitude.
And, thus, we come back to the big drawback of staying in area so bereft of other people. Our B&B was big with long, dark corridors and very few other guests. My sister got a room to herself but it was on a different floor and on the opposite side of the building. The whole place had an unsettling creepiness about it. Two nights of this place proved to be more than enough. Besides which, one day of travelling through abandoned villages had a welcome novelty to it; any more and it would surely have become as bleak and depressing as I am picturing right now. A good thing we moving on to Torquay.
To be continued.
But it was a different sort of excitement. As I mentioned last week, we were embarking on a lengthy Christmas holiday spent on the road. Back from Lincoln just a day and we were once again spurning our tiny Laindon shack, this time heading east. Somewhere near Bristol I drifted off to sleep and when I awoke I noticed an over-abundance of "L's", "W's" and "Y's" in the place names. We were in Wales.
Passing by Cardiff and then through Swansea, we eventually made it to Mumbles where we'd be spending the next two nights. I have no idea how or why my parents chose this charmingly nondescript town on a bay as our base for our trip to Cymru but it proved a good one: we were within easy access of the gorgeous eastern Welsh coast but we were in a town big enough to ensure that some services were still available. As lovely a town as Tenby was to drive through, I daresay we might have starved had we elected to stay there - although that's assuming its no doubt modest selection of B&B's and guesthouses weren't as boarded up as its shops and teahouses. It quickly dawned on us that we had descended upon south Wales in the middle of its off-peak season. My mum was hoping we could stop somewhere for a cup of tea or coffee but our search through the villages of Pembrokeshire proved fruitless. My sister and I noticed an awful lot of storefronts with posters for Gino Ginelli ice cream1: it was as if summer came to an end and entire towns just came to a halt, awaiting the hordes of tourists who weren't us.
That was the downside to having an entire county to ourselves; on the plus side we had an entire county to ourselves. Parking along the coast, we ended up at a beach that was a far cry from those narrow, pebble-strewn strands we'd encountered in Southend, Dover and Brighton. This was a proper beach, the sand was pale and soft, the shore expansive. All I wanted to do was run and jump and that's exactly what I did. A lone windsurfer bravely took on the rough Atlantic waves but he was our only company. Returning to Mumbles, we eventually found a place to eat and walked along the esplanade. Even here on the outskirts of the city of Swansea we were in relative solitude.
And, thus, we come back to the big drawback of staying in area so bereft of other people. Our B&B was big with long, dark corridors and very few other guests. My sister got a room to herself but it was on a different floor and on the opposite side of the building. The whole place had an unsettling creepiness about it. Two nights of this place proved to be more than enough. Besides which, one day of travelling through abandoned villages had a welcome novelty to it; any more and it would surely have become as bleak and depressing as I am picturing right now. A good thing we moving on to Torquay.
To be continued.
1 As Canadians, these signs immediately made us think of Gino Vanelli, he of I Just Wanna Stop-fame and one seriously killer pube-fro.↩
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