Once again, I’m in a minority. According to “overnight data”, only 56 million of us Brits did not watch the final episode of Gavin and Stacey, while 12.3 million did. Even The Guardian TV reviewer gave the show five stars, albeit using words like denouement and cathartic perfection in so doing to describe a TV show. Having made a few failed attempts to watch the show over the years – I found it every bit as funny as a typical show by Victoria Wood, so not funny at all – I do know that Gavin and Stacey is kinder and gentler than the guttural right wing media would have us believe and maybe there’s a lesson within that for all of us.
I have also not bothered to watch King Brian’s Christmas message, but I have read the transcript. Apart from the usual banalities, the old boy actually had some interesting thoughts about how some communities rose up to help quell the summer of violence after the post Southport riots. The fact that the usual suspects on the populist right have attacked Brian’s “wokery” suggests he got something right. Gavin and Stacey, along with King Brian, doing their bit to make Britain a kinder and gentler place? I’d like to think so.
While a couple of TV shows won’t change the world, it was still a helpful reminder that perhaps all is not lost. We live in times when a fascist Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin, is waging war against Ukraine. Death and destruction dominates the Middle East, a right wing demagogue, Donald Trump, is about to unleash chaos and carnage across much of the world and, following the right wing populist theme, Europe, including the UK, is dabbling with the fascism our forefathers fought and died to defeat. We find hope where we can.
What I loved about Christmas was the familiar. The being with family. The exchange of presents. The Christmas dinner together. No edge, no argument, just togetherness that rarely happens again throughout the year. One thing that was absent was a toast to absent friends.
Actually, it wasn’t just the toast to absent friends we forgot, it was the Yorkshire Puddings we meant to serve with the untraditional Roast Beef dinner. In truth, neither really mattered, at least not to me. Of course, I miss my elders who died long ago and, in some kind of imaginary world, I would have liked to have had them all round the table, though not with the dreadful illnesses and conditions that took them from us, which rather made their latter years so tough to bear, mainly for them, but also to us. I’m going to develop this theme, very briefly.
I do not expect to meet up with deceased family and friends in some kind of afterlife. Given how much some of them suffered, it would be the cruelest of Gods who put them through cancer, Parkinsons, dementia and more in some Heaven or Hell. I am sure that death means death, in the same way as idiot politicians who proclaimed that Brexit meant Brexit, and that enables me to celebrate the here and now and to never, intentionally, be away from the comforting bosom of my family at the most wonderful time of the year. This year, with the world going mad, my love for my family and friends has never been greater.
We think, at least I think, regularly about the things that really matter. Christmas as a religious event doesn’t matter at all to me, but Christmas, or the whatever you call your winter festival, means everything. We were not born simply to accumulate wealth, objects, property or simply to practice hedonism as a way of life. These are things that happened along the way. We were born as a result of the accident of our birth and our sole reason for existence if procreation. That is the meaning of life. So, why not try to be a good person along the way? We never pass this way again.
I have not always been a good person. I’ve been far from flawless and I am still far from flawless, possessing numerous unwanted traits and carrying out mistaken actions. But I am trying to be better. Time is running out for me, as it is for you. I am not concerned a great deal about leaving a personal legacy in the sense of people saying, “what a great bloke he was” but I’d like to think I did more good than harm. I’d like to think my tiny imprint on the world made my existence at least a bit worthwhile, given how lucky I was to be born at all.
Gavin and Stacey, even though I can’t stand the show in general and the insufferable James Corden in particular, had more than a touch of feel good about it. So did King Brian’s speech. And it was all a million times better than the hate and loathing as promoted by – and I’ll keep the list short and not sweet – the likes of Nigel Farage, the AFD, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin and wrong ‘uns everywhere.
Okay, 56 million of us didn’t watch Gavin and Stacey but I’ll bet many of us share the love more than the haters would ever imagine. There is hope, whether you do God or you don’t. There is love, too. And without love, where would we be right now?
