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Two hours ago the tornado sirens sounded. It’s mid-winter, but central Illinois was apparently threatened with annihilation by destructive atmospheric vortices.

Immediately, fifty thousands residents rushed to the TV and their local weather station: ground radar displays a huge line of storms heading straight for our town; tornado warnings and watches are in force over the entire area; the weather girl is virtually orgasmic, her normally shrill warble managing another two octaves at the sheer joy of reporting something more arousing than the endless round of snow and ice events predominant at this time of year.

A cold front from Canada is colliding with the warm southerly flow presently basking central Illinois in temperatures of sixty-five degrees. The result is hell breaking loose. Three major storms are due to intersect over our county at any moment. Rotation has been spotted in the upper atmosphere. The weather girl virtually wets herself as she shrieks for everyone to take cover: go to the lowest floor of your house, hide in a room with no windows; cover yourself with something protective; bend down, head between the legs, kiss your ass goodbye……

My wife looks across at me as we sit on our sofa in the living room. We are on the lowest level; we have no room without windows. I shrug, get up, and peer out into the winter bleakness. The sky is gray; it’s raining slightly, the trees sway lithely in a light, southerly, breeze.

The TV screen is a bedlam of swirling radar, large red and yellow blotches, superimposed arrows tracing the storm’s path – straight towards our house, it appears. Breaking news, a barn has been demolished not five miles away; the local weather-tracker van is rushing to bring us pictures.

My wife vanishes into the bedroom and reappears with four pillows. I raise an inquiring eyelid.

“To cover our heads,” she says.

I nod, as though sitting on a sofa with pillows on my head is an obviously sane and sensible idea in the circumstances. After all, she’s the Illinoisan; she knows about these things. I’m just a Brit with no experience of tornadoes.

Suddenly, the weathergirl’s hysteria climaxes. We’re all about to die. I consider reaching for a pillow. A bright-red blotch covers our bit of the map; the heaven’s open and raindrops bounce off the shingles.

For a full two minutes the cloudburst continues unabated. Then, as swiftly as it arrived, it departs. Somewhere, away in the distance, one lonesome rumble of thunder.

I turn back to the TV for guidance, but they’ve switched to adverts.

Filed under: Illinois excitement

Boxing Day is the most wonderful day ever.

After all the tensions and craziness of the lead up to Christmas -you know, the shopping, cooking, preparing for visiting relatives (if you’re unfortunate enough to have any), the hassle of rising early on Christmas morn, opening presents, stuffing oneself silly with turkey and Chateau de Chasselas, lying around bloated all afternoon while the family watch “It’s A Wonderful Life”, followed by the inevitable turkey sandwiches for afternoon tea and supper – Boxing Day is a day of gradual recuperation.

The relatives have gone, what’s left of the turkey’s been confined to the freezer, the fire’s blazing in the hearth, and no-one found that extra bottle of Chateau de Chasselas stashed carefully behind the sofa before the hordes invaded yesterday.

Boxing Day is a time to relax after the exertions of Christmas, reflect on the hubbub of yesterday, and feel content with life and everything around you.

What a pity Americans insist on rushing back to work the day after Christmas. They miss out on so much.

A cold turkey sandwich, anyone?

Filed under: Pity the oppressed

It’s Christmas time once again. It’s that period of the year when all the idiots and warmongers get together to fight about whether it’s politically correct to call it “Christmas”, or “Holidays”, or “Holy Hannukah”, or maybe just invent a completely new name that won’t satisfy anyone?

These arguments have nothing to do with Christmas, of course. It’s more about religious, or atheistic, hooligans allowing free reign to their egos. They love anything and everything that creates contention in the world, which is somewhat ironic when you consider they all plead a belief in the message of Christmas, if not the name.

Remember? It’s all about peace and goodwill towards men.

When I was a small boy I grew out of believing in a “Son of God” almost as quickly as I realized my dad was masquerading as Santa Claus. It didn’t diminish the magic one iota, though. For me, the magic of Christmas was its ability to transform people. I relished the tales of World War One soldiers leaving their trenches on Christmas Day, shaking hands with the enemy, and even playing soccer with them in No Man’s Land. The next day they’d be doing their utmost to kill each other, but for this one day of the year they became friends and shared a bit of love.

Now THAT’S Christmas magic.

Christmas transformations weren’t confined to the battlefield, either. Times were hard for most in Britain just after the end of the second world war, but everyone was happy around Christmastime, there was truly an aura of peace and goodwill on the streets. Strangers exchanged greetings, and a sense of camaraderie pervaded the land.

We didn’t hear much about the US in those days, but if Hollywood exported any accurate sense of America in the 1950’s, then there’s every reason to believe it was a similar situation over here.

The magic of Christmas isn’t reliant on Santa Claus or Jesus Christ being what we were once told they were. The spiritual messages of both are similar. Santa ensured that every child in the world had a toy on Christmas Day, and Jesus set out to teach us how to live together in harmony, peace, and goodwill.

In a sense, both failed. Millions of children get nothing but empty bellies and misery on Christmas Day, and the human race is further than ever from even an inkling of peaceful coexistence.

Can we blame Santa or Jesus for that? No, of course not. We only have ourselves to blame, because it’s not about Godly intervention, or magical reindeer rides, it’s about us – you and me.

Yes, YOU – Christian! And YOU – Jew! And YOU – Muslim! And YOU – atheist!

Since time immemorial we’ve all been side-stepping our responsibilities and blaming the other person for the problems in this world. We’ve all argued and bickered to achieve what we want, to the detriment of the other man, or woman.

There is no peace, or goodwill, or harmony at Christmas anymore. We don’t have time for such things. We’re much to busy slagging off the Jew, or Christian, or Muslim, or atheist, while pretending we’re all terribly politically correct by arguing that we should call it something other than Christmas.

I’m neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Muslim, nor an atheist. I’m just a man who’s sick of war, sick of the stupid bickering that makes a mockery of the Christmas message, and sick of my fellow men and women convincing themselves they have a god-given right to slaughter their fellows without compunction.

The Christmas message from Sparrow Chat this year goes out to all you Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, or whatever you care to label yourselves, and whether you are black, white, pink, yellow, puce, or green with blue spots:

May you allow the True Spirit of Christmas, with its accompanying peace, harmony, and goodwill to ALL men, to descend on you and remain with you, not just for the short holiday period, but always and forever.

You don’t need religion to achieve this. The Spirit of Christmas doesn’t descend from Heaven, it’s in your heart. All you have to do is let it out, and stop believing you’re the bee’s knees and everyone else is shit.

If you really do, there’s just a chance you may change the world.

Or, you might end up crucified.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL READERS”

Filed under: Christmas message