Some pictures of the snowy scenes across Bristoooool! Bbbrrrr……!

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Winter is great; warm fires in country pubs, home-cooked meals that fill you up to your eyeballs, warm cuddles with loved ones, and of course, the hope of snow! But for every ‘good’ Mother Nature grants us, there has to be an opposing ‘bad’, and in winter, that’s colds and flu; skin and scalp problems; and probably some of your own personal ones that frankly, we don’t want to go into here.

So here’s my natural guide to overcoming the worst of winter’s ails…

The Common Cold:
Echinacea will boost your immunity. Take Echinacea either in a glass of water, in tea, or buy ready-made Echinacea tea bags from any good health store. DO NOT buy Echinacea tincture – it has ethanol in it which not only makes it smell and taste disgusting but is not actually beneficial to your body in any way. I recommend Echinacea and Golden Seal liquid extract from Holland & Barrett, although it comes in tablet form, I actually like the way a few drops make an old-fashioned cup of tea taste.
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Hearken the twelve dongs of New Year! 365 days of degeneracy and the brain rushes to update your life-story, soldering another chapter of botched lifestyle choices onto corroding memory banks. Take a look over your shoulder and praise the obsolete decision making apparatus that oversaw each and every action. Oh me oh my! You’re the inheritor of a boiled-dry pan of fucked-up life beans. What you need, is a clean slate.

Morally bankrupt cretins we are, humans have developed an effective method to evade compacted Bad Karma – and we term them New Year Resolutions! Once a year the Life Fairy tip-toes into whatever club, pub or ditch we’ve washed up into this New Year’s Eve and offers ‘one more chance’ to cleanse our soiled hearts; anything to halt a deluge of tears on the twelfth gong and stop us dwelling on what a waste of space we are.
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In these gloomy times of recessions, crashes and closures, you’ be forgiven for thinking we don’t have much to celebrate this December 31st; however, it is possible to bring in 2009 without breaking the bank, just follow this guide to celebrating New Years in style and on the cheap!

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Softly the frosted
air falls,
layer upon layer,
St Nicholas calls.

And children playing
Through the night,
Glitter and douse their eyes
like snowmen,
they see only
the falling clouds
crush the houses

under which

Soft promises are left
under the bed
secretly listening
for promises kept.

Jason Beech

We all have them and we all love them - films that we are strictly forbidden from watching except for on one very special day of the year: Christmas. And when that special day rolls around then watch them we do, every 25th December without fail, no matter what. Everybody has their ‘Christmas Film’, it’s a family event and they are just as much a Christmas tradition as stockings on the fireplace, sherry on the carpet and overdone turkey in your belly.

There’s no set formula for a Christmas film, they can range across genres and certainly aren’t limited to Christmas themes – after a bit of research, the only thing that seems to tie them together is a positive, rounded and all together ‘nice’ ending, perhaps reflecting or representing the innocence and positive nature that Christmas Day itself is suppose to be all about!
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Without the pressure that New Years Eve embodies, Christmas Eve is arguably the best night out of the year. If you’re torn between spending a boozy night out with your mates or a sober one in with the family, here are some pro’s and con’s to consider:

It’s a great idea…!
Festive Loving – Christmas Eve is one of those nights where literally everyone is excited and in a good mood. If you go to the pub with your mates then you know it’s going to be a fun night.

Everyone is Together – This is a rare opportunity to find all the people you know in the same place, at the same time. Whether that’s your close friends or people you’ve not spoken to in years, expect some festive friend requests in the morning.
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Across the globe there are approximately 2 billion children (persons under 18 years of age) all in need of presents at Christmas; however, since he does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist (except maybe in Japan) religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average rate of 3.5 children per household (Worldwide Census), that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.
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December is just one long month of consumption: Christmas party after Christmas party, beer after beer, mulled wine after mulled wine, forever helping yourself to the seemingly endless string of Christmas buffets and mince pies on offer. As you greedily pack endless chocolates and slabs of turkey into you wide gob, there’s a pang of guilt but you keep telling yourself not to worry, it’s Christmas after all, just enjoy yourself.

Mince pie – 200 calories
Glass of wine – 120 calories
Pint of lager – 227 calories
Mulled wine – 245 calories
Mixed nuts – 440 calories
Candy cane – 60 calories
A chocolate from a box – 50 calories
Ice cream – 145 calories
Roast turkey – 340 calories
Stuffing – 180 calories
Cranberry sauce – 190 calories
Gravy – 150 calories
Christmas pudding with brandy butter - 423 calories
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With Christmas approaching, the thorny issue of festive love always arises. Anyone can roughly divide their friends into the ‘I watch Love Actually and feel pathetically envious’ ones and the ‘fuck fucking Christmas, I’ll be broody’ types. From my experience, people will go through recurring cycles of transition between these two admittedly wonderful attitudes in the months leading up to the, now 2009th, birth of the most troublesome baby in history.

Getting Christmas Love Strategies:

Try standing awkwardly under mistletoe at the office party until someone takes pity or until you see someone on the other side of the room doing the same and you realise what a desperate lemon they/you look.

There’s no time to waste so catch prospective partners’ eyes by wearing the wedding-cake-like extravaganza dress – remember there is no limit to red taffeta/cleavage/bows/glitter wearing during Christmas.
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