Santa Claus is coming to...(Column No.1465)

Santa Claus is coming to…a supermarket near you.

Everyone agrees, supermarket music and other in-store music is the most painful thing known to mankind, after leaf blowers and four-wheel drives with stupid exhausts that go ‘djjjnnnnnngg’ (or however you spell it) in crescendo then diminuendo when changing gears down the main street in the weird hope that it will attract the opposite sex.

Yet every Christmas, retail music gets even more painful and even more repetitive, because there hasn’t been a new Christmas tune written since Bing Crosby died.

Okay, no one remembers Bing Crosby, but that makes it worse.

It’s not as if his Christmas songs were that good we should memorialise him in this fashion, but we do.

Perhaps he’s been dead so long that all his songs are now available for free which is the exact amount supermarkets are prepared to spend on in-store torture?

However, what is hardest to understand is why supermarkets haven’t grasped that such rubbish doesn’t encourage people to spend more let alone feel more Christmas joy.

It just makes people angrier, reminding them there’s only a week to go, they still haven’t bought any presents, and are paralysed with fear that 20 freeloading rellies are coming to xmas lunch and they can’t even cook scrambled eggs let alone a turducken, quite possibly the most disgusting culinary thing ever invented and which for some reason reminds us of Barnaby Joyce.

There should be a competition to decide the most irritating song of Christmas, which paradoxically would cheer a lot of people up.

Or maybe a listicle? People love listicles, which sounds as revolting as Barnaby and turduckens in the same sentence, so why not the ten worst Christmas tunes?

Actually, you don’t need a list. There is only one absolutely, hands-down, laydown-misère, unquestioned, without-doubt worst song - ‘Santa Claus is coming to town’.

Doesn’t matter who sings it, Adele, ASAP Rocky, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Bing Bloody Crosby, it is truly awful…and dangerous.

Everyone bangs on about child welfare and safety stuff, yet we allow a song about a stranger who knows where you live, sees you when you’re sleeping, knows who is naughty and nice, and knows when you’ve been good or bad, for goodness sakes.

Isn’t that just a bit creepy? Even Facebook would ban someone like that…hmmm, maybe not.

The song warns kids not to cry or pout. Pretty much the opposite of what psychologists tell us we should be encouraging in our kids, specially boys.

And then it blares out people’s windows on Christmas day!

Struth, pass the headphones and pour me another bubbles, boxing day can’t come soon enough.

Actually, maybe Jingle Bells Rock is worse?

Scarborough Hunter Valley Old North Vineyard 'The Obsessive' Shiraz 2018, $60. Picked on the 20th of January, the label says. They're not fudging it when they say obsessive. 9.4/10.

Scarborough Hunter Valley (Gillards Road Vineyard) 'The Obsessive' Chardonnay 2019, $40. “Picked on Australia Day'', sounds obsessive, but as Ms L. enquired, what time? Now that would be obsessive. But the purpose is clear, the end result is obsessively good chardonnay. 9.6/10.

Tapanappa Fleurieu Peninsula Foggy Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir, 2019,  $55. Not quite the depth of its older brother, the 2018 version, but still a cut above your average fare, and worthy of its price tag. 9.4/10.

Tapanappa Piccadilly Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay 2020, $55. Sometimes a simple sem or sauv just won't cut it come dinner time and you need to break out the big guns, and what better than a big gun chardonnay like this? Not many. 9.5/10.

Wine X Sam The Victorian (Upper Goulburn) Riesling 2021, $24. Upper Goulburn is a notch or two up on Upper Middle Bogan, specially when it comes to riesling, but the beauty of riesling is that even bogans like it. 9.2/10.          

Wine X Sam Victoria The Butterfly Effect Shiraz 2020, $14. If all the butterflies in China jumped off a chair at the same time, nothing would happen. That is the 'Butterfly Effect'. There is another Butterfly Effect however, this one. Amazingly soft and malleable wine for a ridiculously low price. 9.3/10.

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