Christmas songs may be cloying but they usually do not set out to offend.
They may annoy, especially after hearing them again and again from November onwards.
They may even, as in the case of Wham’s Last Christmas, inspire an utterly risible festive rom-com after someone decided to take the lyric “I gave you my heart” literally.
But given the subject matter and time of year, so long as the lyrics rhyme it rarely matters what they say.
And then there is Fairytale Of New York, The Pogues’ sour corrective to all the saccharine banality that usually clogs up the charts and airwaves at this time of year.
Released in 1986, the song – a duet between the late, great Kirsty MacColl and the somehow-not-late but still very great Shane MacGowan – is a story of drunkenness, regret, venom, misery, blame and a twinkling of hope for better times ahead at the end. Much like Christmas, in other words.
But this year there has been a veritable stooshie over the lyric, sung by MacColl towards MacGowan, that he is “a scumbag, a maggot, a cheap lousy faggot”, which has been deemed homophobic and offensive to gays.
Which, let’s be clear, the term undoubtedly is and we have, thankfully, as a society, moved on from the days when homophobia was not just casual but commonplace.
But MacGowan’s defence is reasonable: it’s not just the word, it is who is using it, and how. We may lump Fairytale Of New York in with Christmas classics but neither character in it is supposed to be likeable, nor are they anything approaching role models. That’s not subtext, that is the song. His character gives as good as he gets, describing his loved one as “an old slut on junk”, which is, with the best will in the world, not particularly festive.
MacGowan may have spent much of his life trying to drink himself into oblivion but he is no idiot and knows when and how to deploy the most offensive swear words for biggest impact.
And if you’re in any doubt about that I would direct you, or at least those of you who are not easily offended, to his album The Snake, recorded with The Popes after MacGowan was booted out of the Pogues for his drinking, where he gives free rein to the fruitier corners of his vocabulary when required.
Sometimes the wrong word in the right place can pack quite a punch.
But the bitterness of Fairytale Of New York also reminds us that there are others whose troubles, even at Christmas, dwarf our own.
That there will be people facing illness or loss whose Christmas will bring no comfort or joy.
There will be people who may be spending Christmas alone for the first time. People who may be spending Christmas alone again.
The reason Fairytale Of New York endures, and will endure despite concerns over its lyrical content, is that it is a far more accurate picture of Christmas and, at the end, the glimmer of hope, and tenderness, it brings.
It’s a time when we can, for a day at least, put aside our troubles, regrets and recriminations and appreciate what we have, rather than worrying about what we don’t.
Knocked sprouts unloaded
There were amazing scenes in Rosyth this week as a trailer carrying tens of thousands of sprouts toppled over.
Newspapers across the country found themselves clearing spaces on their front pages for photographs of the world’s most boring vegetable. Truly, a Christmas miracle.
Reporters are often asked what it is we write about, even by those presumably familiar with the concept of newspapers.
In popular imagination, we’re always having secret conversations in underground car parks or running around in a flap screaming at people to hold the front page as we hand over another Earth-shattering exclusive.
In real life, we’re sitting at our desks trying, and failing, to come up with decent sprout-related puns.
Down and sprout was my, sadly unused, offering, by the way.
Train in vain
It would be safe to say Abellio has not enjoyed a huge amount of success while running the ScotRail franchise.
So poor has the service been and so outraged are the poor commuters forced to use its trains, the Scottish Government is to strip the Dutch firm of the franchise in 2022, three years before the contract was due to end.
Brilliantly, however, it turns out Abellio will be allowed to bid on the contract again in 2022.
Regardless of which firm it goes up against, it seems Abellio will have an unfair advantage over its competitors.
After all, it knows exactly where all the problems are, even if it has not quite managed to get around to solving them yet.
