Bart Simpson is bigger than Jesus!

And, before any hail and brimstone, bolts of lightning or indeed the derision from any bible bashers out there, let me explain: 

Sitting on a shelf above my desk, and keeping an eye on me, is a small china statue of adult Jesus, but sorry again to my more pious friends, no I haven’t seen the light, been converted or even re-born (reminds me of a little photo project I undertook a couple of years ago, so watch out for the next blog post!), it was quite simply a teeth crunching free gift, which I’ll explain in due cause.  Next to the “Good Shepherd,” all 30mm of him – I did say it was small, is a similar statue of Bart Simpson, coming in at 33.5mm, hence my claim above and then to rub salt in the wound and therefore outnumbering “Our Saviour” is a 33mm sized effigy of Bart’s classmate, Martin Prince.

An odd, some might say strange, collection of icons or idols but there simply for no other reason than to remind me, somewhat belatedly, to relate to you a rather simple and sadly now somewhat corrupted French Christmas custom.  La Fête des Rois, or Twelfth Night as it is known as in the UK, celebrates the arrival of the three Kings in Bethlehem to visit and bring gifts to the infant Jesus.  One French tradition on this day, is the serving of the Galette des Rois, a eggy pastry cake in which a fève or charm is hidden, in much the same way as our traditional Christmas pubs contained a silver sixpence.  The Galette comes complete with a golden crown, which sits on the top as it is served, and whoever gets the slice of cake containing the hidden fève is crowned king or queen for the day!  Traditionally the fève would be a simple bean or simply fashioned baby or other Christmas figure made in rough china, and it is gratifying as well as tooth crunching to find that this is still the case, at least in those galette’s that we sampled, and that they haven’t been plasticised.

But sadly, no doubt purely for commercial reasons, hard-headed business people have seen fit to substitute the bean or crude religious effigies with china Simpson’s figures, even annotated with TM (trademark) and © (copyright), in what to me is a step too far.  Many of you will know my views on the cynical and multi-million pound advertising campaigns and merchandising of things as diverse as Harry Potter teabags (although I have never read the books, I’m told tea is a vital ingredient!), through anatomically impossible incredibly expensive cheap plastic dolls, for which each Christmas a new range of must have accessories is colourfully advertised on Children’s TV (the ad-persons of the world are no strangers to peer pressure!), and the dolls can’t even stand up properly let alone sit comfortably in the latest open top sports car (they have to be open topped as the doll wouldn’t bend enough in the right places to get into a car with a roof!), to plastic ponies in pastel shades decorated with flowers and sporting impossibly long nylon manes.  With the last of these commercial items, a huge research budget, only belittled by the revenue forecasts that accompanied the business plan, found out that little girls liked pastel colours, flowers, horses and combing hair – so the My Little Pony was born, or rather cheaply moulded in plastic, packaged in large colourful boxes with lots of cellophane and endorsements, and sold at an incredible price.  But as little Cordelia has a large stable full of the rigid beasts including the latest “British Olympic Show jumping themed” pony, breaking somewhat with tradition and coloured white and red with a blue mane, it’s absolutely necessary for Persephone to go one better and have the whole equestrian team, despite not one of them looking fit and blithe enough to clear the lowest of jumps, for a start the legs don’t even bend!!  It’s that peer pressure raising its ugly head again, but then there is lots of soothing nylon hair there to groom!

But, back to Bart and Jesus Christ, an expression that I’m sure Bart’s father might use when comparing the two.  Although I’ve never managed a complete episode, having tried if only to search, in vain in my case, for the appeal, I can easily hear Bart’s Dad, Homer I think it might be, saying, when asked to compare the two heroes in this piece (BS and JC), and decide which is the biggest:  “Jesus Christ there’s no contest, ......... Bart of course!  That’s my boy!,” as Bart announces to anyone wishing to listen “Eat my Shorts!” totally drowning out JC’s quiet offer to wash the feet of a sinner or two.

Going back to the small china ornaments, looking again it seemed that just perhaps if you were to discount the plinths that the figures are standing on, Jesus might win by a short head, but sadly no, despite the bigger soapbox, Bart still just comes first, I guess simply reflecting that perhaps, with the help of some clever marketing perhaps Bart does indeed have a larger following, and JC perhaps needs to enlist the help of Saatchi and Saatchi!          

Was Born!

I was a lovely child, prone to stamping my foot and demanding a Bourbon biscuit, my favourite, when I knew there weren’t any in the house and 24 hour Tesco’s were years away.

But in my defence the family must take some of the blame, and although I’ve only now thought of it over fifty years later, perhaps there was another way to break the news to me when giving me my glass of bedtime milk than; “we haven’t any of your lovely, chocolaty, favourite, yummy Bourbon biscuits, have a rather plain and claggy* Rich Tea instead!” (* here I must confess to a little poetic licence as claggy is a Yorkshire term, I’m sure unknown in my family over half a century ago, but if you’ve ever eaten a Rich Tea biscuit, your teeth will know just what it means!!)

Then, there were the times, often in the car, when we would be driving somewhere and having a family conversation about all sorts of things, such as previous car journeys, holidays, playmates, parties (you get the gist of it) and I’d be attentively listening, still you must realise, strapped in my baby seat and wanting even then to be able to join in the conversation, I would make a simple remark like “I don’t remember that holiday.” or ask a simple question like “What present did we buy Auntie so and so at that party, I don’t remember?”  To which there would be a chorus of “You wouldn’t remember, you weren’t born!”

This, like the Bourbon biscuits, or lack of them, made me very angry and there would be more pouting and foot stamping accompanied by me shouting “Was born!”  A simple kindly explanation would have sufficed here, an early lesson on the passing of time and chronological order and the tantrum would have stopped!  But no!, my antics were simply laughed at, not with I hasten to add, and opportunities found no less to bait me and taunt me with “You weren’t born!,” for another good laugh at the reaction! It’s amazing I’ve turned out as level headed as I have really!!

Imagine my horror then to recently discover this picture taken of Bob Dylan back in 1965, a photo from what has arguably been regarded as one of the most famous music videos of all time, a promotional video for Subterranean Homesick Blues of which Get Born forms part of the lyric, a song that apparently so captivated John Lennon that he worried he would never be able to compete!, and with this lyric in mind prompted Pete Townsend of The Who fame, to liken hearing Dylan sing for the first time to being born!;

Dylan 1965

The song lyrics “Still crazy after all this years” (From the title track of Paul Simon’s fourth studio album, thank you google!) came to mind, as I flung down the newspaper I was reading and stormed off, not in a paddy, but eager to change and produce my altogether more mature response and email it to my earlier tormentors, to show I hadn’t been deeply affected at an early age!!   Unfortunately, it’s a good few years ago that I would have been able to replicate the hair, at least on the top of the head!!!

Higgs 2011