Christmas...and the Camel.

Got the devastating news last night over a wonderfully refreshing radler, shandy to non-German speakers, that the Christmas market was opening this weekend.  This annual event, celebrating centuries of yuletide, the German fascination for wooden toys, the coming together of people over a hot mug of punch, is upon us, and I will be inflicted with its grotesqueness.  Not a happy moment, and one that seems to come ever more quickly with each passing year.

Ok, I know that I sound miserable, and as my son said the other night I should watch Scrooge to remind me of what Christmas is all about, nevertheless the Christmas market is a very severe pain in the butt.  There are literally thousands of people who visit it during December, most are tourists, most of whom are carrying cameras and camcorders, most of whom think it's perfectly acceptable to get in your way as they take photographs of their loved ones.  If this wasn't all there is to contend with, the market is set up in such a way that the stalls are set up in rows, with very narrow passages, making it virtually impossible to start at one end and not be in a bad mood by the time you get to the other end.

To the first time visitor the market is a thing to be enjoyed, and even I have to admit that such was the 'adventure' on my very first visit that I did enjoy it, mostly because it was new and unknown, and I was endowed with an abundance of ignorance.  Five Christmas markets on, in as far as it is humanly possible, such romantic delusions have been abandoned and in the cold light of December, my only wish is that I was elsewhere, deeply so.

Having got that off my chest, and as the season of goodwill to all men (and women) is now upon us, I think it's appropriate to talk about camels.  Why camels I hear you muttering to yourselves as you plough through this, sitting comfortably in the sanctity of the one room, where nobody disturbs you.  Should you actually be reading this elsewhere, I thank you.  Should you be reading this in the toilet, please be careful when you finish as the edges of a laptop can be a little rough on the skin.  But I digress from the subject of the camel, and if I were the camel I'd have the hump by now.  On the other hand, if I was a female camel I'd get the hump twice; which would tend to prove that men are more forgiving, don't get the hump so often, and only have the capacity for half an argument.  But that's by the by.

So what's so fascinating about camels?  No idea really, except that I thought the camel should get a mention as it rarely gets one.  This, after all, is the season of goodwill and camels deserve as much goodwill as the next man.  Yes, I know, lots of mentions about men but it can't be avoided for the purposes of literary greatness.  Although I will admit that I've never met a camel who could claim any form of literary greatness.  To my knowledge there's no Camel Wordsworth, Camel Shakespeare, or Camel Dickens; but then again there's Camel Sutra, so there is one I guess, although his book on physical distortions and flexibility are far too advanced in its thinking for me.

The camel isn't a particular favourite of mine, unlike the dolphin who will always be tops or the gannet - a type of booby (no jokes please), but you can't help but admire this ship of the desert, even if they can be a temperamental so and so.   Ask yourself where would the world of cinema be without 'Lawrence of Arabia? For that matter, where would David Lean, Alec Guiness, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn and Peter O'Toole be without the camel?  These are serious questions that need an answer!

This brings us back to the beginning, and my miserable comments about the Christmas market.  The camel, along with the donkey, two stubborn animals, who actually play a fundamental role in the story of Christmas, without them there would be no Christmas, and no Christmas market.  On that particular note, I wonder how good the camel is to eat?