Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Jump Into Something Cold For Christmas

One small step towards eliminating banal TV coverage from the world
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I was thinking about traditional images of Christmas and one of the odder ones in the UK is the annual coverage of idiots who go swimming in the English Channel on Christmas Day.

Whilst people are perfectly entitled to swim in the Channel whenever they want (well, English people anyway, not so sure about the French) I really don’t see why they have to get 5 minutes of news coverage for it.

My scheme, therefore, is simple. A flotilla of large, flatbed trucks with several ice-cold, plunge pools deployed on the back (each containing a different but interesting fluid), should be driven around every housing estate in Britain on Christmas Day so that anyone who wants to show what a wacky person they are can quickly don their swimwear when the local truck arrives, nip outside and do so in glorious anonymity as far as the rest of the country are concerned.

And of course, if they unfortunately found themselves locked out of the house and unable to get back under shelter and even, possibly, froze to death on the pavement outside whilst everyone inside was enjoying their post-prandial Christmas snooze, then that would just be an added, extra bonus.

Note to self: Once again I seem to be edging towards the Public: Population Control category. I really must try and develop a more positive attitude towards my fellow humans.
DrBob, Dec 19 2008

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       //I really must try and develop a more positive attitude towards my fellow humans.// - that sentence appears to imply your attitude is already a bit positive.
hippo, Dec 19 2008
  

       Point taken.
DrBob, Dec 19 2008
  

       [+] obviously.... does jumping off a 10ft high fence into a 5ft high snowdrift on New Year's count.... oh yes, while wearing a kilt.
FlyingToaster, Dec 19 2008
  

       Hmm! You've made me have doubts now. The prospect of accidentally creating a banality vacuum which merely encourages the growth of more banality to fill the void is a quite horrific one. Is this how Victor Frankenstein felt? If so, it's not a very nice feeling and I don't like it at all!
DrBob, Dec 19 2008
  

       Surely the fact that water abuts the entirety of the coastline of the UK, not just the English Channel, means that an easier way to achieve your propsal would be that on Christmas Day the whole interior of the country is made significantly steeper so that everyone, regardless of their level of self-perceived wackiness, rolls until such time as they come to rest in either the sea or any of the bodies of water that will form in large crannies as a resuly (direct or otherwise) of the nationwide ensteepening. This is the sort of mass participation activity that will engender a strong sense of Britishness, as our premier would prefer.
calum, Dec 19 2008
  

       Could work, I suppose. If you had a system of massive hydraulic jacks imbedded in the spine of the country then they could be activated on Christmas Day and the UK would open up like the window on an advent calendar, sliding everyone into the seas. Perhaps a lovely picture of a nativity scene could be painted on the geological sub-strata so that it can be seen on google maps (etc) when the UK is 'open' on Christmas Day.
DrBob, Dec 19 2008
  

       Or maybe Ruud Gullit sitting on a shed?
calum, Dec 19 2008
  

       Or Steve McLaren holding his umbrella? (card #14 in a collectors series of "Tragic Moments in British Football History", get them free in each packet of Typhoo tea!).
DrBob, Dec 19 2008
  

       UB, broken ankles even more?
po, Dec 20 2008
  

       It´s not _that_ cold here right now. I went out without a coat on and we haven´t needed to burn any furniture today at all, although i did set fire to a cardboard box when my poikilothermic friend came round.
nineteenthly, Dec 20 2008
  

       //we haven´t needed to burn any furniture today at all//

Ha! Think yourself lucky! The council here have decided that now is a good time to repaint the block of flats. They re-painted my front door and I had to keep it open for seven hours whilst the bloody paint dried!
DrBob, Dec 21 2008
  

       a large bun for the description +
//One small step towards eliminating banal TV coverage from the world//
not only jumping into the English Channel, but it seems that *the weather* has become NEWS for the last few years! Since when is weather anything new? 24 hour coverage of snow storms, just look out the window. This last ice storm we had in New England wasn't news until people got their electricity back on!!
oh yeah and a bun for your wacky idea, too.
xandram, Dec 22 2008
  
      
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