Only way to get decent BBQ in London.

Given that it’s been at least 6 months since anything meaningful arrived here, one might forgive you if you used Ooh Sometimes as your number one news source, in which case you probably had the idea that London was still burning down in full riot mode, which as it’s coming up to the festive period, would have meant that this time of year would have been a better time as there would have more things to select from your local TV shop than there was in the summer. After all they normally save their best stuff for Christmas.

So at long last it was time to deck the halls with bits of rubbish found in the nearby bins, prepare Grandma for a good stuffing and once again run around trying to get things for people we cannot stand, with money we simply do not have. Merry Christmas indeed. Bah, humbug and other words that Charles Dickens would care to throw out.

In last year’s warning over the forthcoming festive season, it was commented that in general, people’s attitudes seem to have altered in comparison to years gone by, not that I’m an expert in reading human behaviour. There was a great restraint on people mentioning the whole “New Year, New Start” phenomenon which was so popular the year before, which borderline drove me insane, therefore reaching out for some stranger in the street’s throat, screaming “Why wait for next year to do something when you could try and do something about it now….hello officer, didn’t see you there.”

Of course, we were still in the mix of financial cuts that many faced, be it individuals or businesses, and as a result, it seemed to be getting back to basics for a large part of it, in turn somehow making Christmas something more special than getting a few days off to eat, drink and p*ss our misery away while moaning about getting a book about road signs and a watch that tells you that you need to buy another watch.

This year, what actually has changed?

Yes, and then I did press her against the wall while she strangled me.

Well arguably the only thing that seems to have actually changed at all, is the number of the year. One year later we are still in the mist of a huge turmoil in the world, possibly now even worse with French President Nicolas Sarkozy having it off with Stunt-double-for-Shrek Angela Merkel in order to save the dead parrot sketch that the Euro currency now is all but certain to become.

Recent announcements by the Pirates of the Coalition caused all unions to strike, all unicorns to die, mass evacuation of all bottoms in a 100 mile radius of Westminster and for Jeremy Clarkson to make another joke which everyone got jolly upset about, even if the full footage showed it was in fact a joke and not to be taken seriously. That’s only scratching the surface of the events of recent times.

Given that Ooh Sometimes has been effectively off the air as it were for 6 months, we cannot even forget that there have been a great many other pauses for thought between August and December, some of which could only be described as “Things that happened.”

Join us now as we look back with fond and perhaps somewhat sketchy memories of the last 6 months so we can simply copy and paste the same rubbish for the “We all know it’s coming” Review of the Year post in 2012, which of course as we all know, will be the year everything ends again, again.

The scene at Waterstones, when the crowd is told they don’t sell any fruit, just books.

The uprisings in the Middle East continue (Remember them? Good times were had by all.), even though the citizens in Egypt won and then got jolly upset at the temporary military guys for some silly reason, something about them being just as bad as that thunderbirds puppet Mubarak they got rid of before, in which case they started again in Tahrir Square.

Whose Libya is it anyway? Well it certainly will never be discarded Madame Tussauds’ waxwork, Gadaffi, who tragically accidently slipped on a bullet to his head. Finally after something which began back in February of this year, the Libyans now have a chance to reshape their country as they see fit, put some lovely flowers here, a McDonalds there….. Nor will it be in fact Osama Bin-Lid as Seal Team 123456789 came in heroically shot him while he yanked off to some tasteful art on YouPorn. Or held his wife hostage. Or who had a gun or didn’t. Probably. Who cares?

Yes, the man who became a symbol for the war on Terror, suddenly became an excuse for all Americans to take to the street, whoop a lot and dance around on camera for all the world to see, at which the world just sighed and went back to its knitting.

Speaking of the USA AOK nation, the 2012 presidential race was hotting up, with every republican candidate basically loosing the lead for having sex with something, losing all control of their higher brain functions or scaring people about everyday household objects and how they were going to kill your children. Meanwhile Obama after having Osama killed, got a pie. If you can make more sense of it than the various news teams in America, you should contact CNN and apply for a job.

And finally as far as re-runs of events go, the phone hacking scandal which rocked the casbah earlier this year came back into the news with every Tom, Dick and body part/celebrity waste turning up and stating they were victims of child abuse, I mean, phone hacking. Though to be fair, the only one which got the ladies stirring was Huge Grant, who has been a valiant fighter against all those who would try to ensure that he never got up to naughty again with a hooker in LA. The lady barrister who was caught on camera staring at the star’s huge grant, is said to be in need of getting laid.

So now that we are all caught up with the state of affairs, one might ask what is there to look forward to for Christmas, given that if anything on the ground, things continue to get harder. Well there are the traditional values of spending time with the family, giving what you can to those you love and watching the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special. Or we could just drink ourselves silly thinking that next year will be different. Next year will be different, in that it will be 2012 instead of 2011.

Don’t have nightmares.