Sunday, December 12, 2004

Slugger Santas

The idea was to set a world record for the most number of Santas in one place, to raise money for charity. What it nearly ended up as was a world record for the most number of Santas involved in a street brawl! It would be depressing if it wasnt amusing (or should that be the other way around?).

About 4000 Santas took part in a charity run in a place called Newtown, in Wales. It appeared that the race was run in correct festive cheer, but Christmas goodwill disappeared at some point a few hours later... perhaps because festive spirits were drowned in alcoholic spirits. Police had to use teargas and batons on the brawling Santas to break up the fight.

I cant help wondering about the effect this would've had on the children of Newtown, though... first of all, the shock of seeing thousands of Santas where they would've expected only one. All the stories about Santa Claus only mention ONE of him, right?

And to top that off, the trauma of seeing the Santas fighting... fertile ground for a future rise in the number of adults who will require intensive counselling because of their suppressed childhood memories of watching Santas slugging away at each other. (Phew, what a mouthful!) Heh heh.

12 comments:

Harish said...

Merry Chrishtmash.. hic! :)

And the last sentence read like something staight outta a Company Law book!!

Shammi said...

Yeah, I dont know whether to be proud of myself for that last sentence, or just surprised that I could do it. P'raps I've missed my calling. P'raps I was meant to be a lawyer. :)

Houseowner said...

shyam
good to see u returning to earthly things such as santas! ;P instead of whatchamacallit theorems! :) see, how deeply i have been affected by ur last post! :(
cheers,
ramya

Unknown said...

well i found the last line something exactly what i would've thought of...
maybe the fact that you are an indian, you realize that such things do have an effect on people..sad that american children are that vulnerable, to make weaker adults. Even if such an incident occured here in India, not a child would be affected for more than a few moments.

dont u think?

Shammi said...

Rums, I shall sincerely try not to mention that m-word again. ;-) You're giving me an awful lot of grief for ONE post that isnt even to do with the painful part of mathematics! :-) (oops, I said the m-word)

Shammi said...

I guess Indian kids are brought up more pragmatically, I dunno, Lav. They arent over-dissected and psycho-analysed, the way children in the West seem to be. Everything (house-moving, new school, whatever) is treated as traumatic when it doesnt NEED to be. When I wrote that last sentence, I wasnt sure of my own attitude at the time - I didnt know whether I meant it seriously or ironically. Perhaps a bit of both! :)

ABCD said...

Hmmm... isn't it sad when children are made to believe in something that doesnt exist? Imagine the sadness of the children who believed in the Santa ... poor lads
By the way,
"perhaps because festive spirits were drowned in alcoholic spirits" - nice punchline :D

Ignore this if u've already heard... is it true that Santa's wife was called 'Mary Christmas'??!!

Shammi said...

Oh great, now there are TWO guys who kadichufy mercilessly... Aswin, I'd LIKE to have ignored "Mary Christmas", but couldnt! :-)

Harish said...

I'm proud of my benchmate!!!! :D

F e r r a r i said...

Please dont talk about spirits on a monday morning :-(

F e r r a r i said...

And Yeah. For a second I though you are mentioning some joke about Santa Singh and Banta Singh :-p

hari said...

Hi Shyam,

Is it UK you are talking about. It sounds more like India. So development or underdevelopment is not the criteria when it come to the situation of "too many cooks spoiling the dish".

But you are correct it would have polluted the minds of young children in more ways than one. The first being so many Santa Clause. Second the Santa Clause is seen as a soul spreading peace and love with gifts. But in reality they got to see a different picture.