I’m old enough to remember seeing Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas in 1977 in which David Bowie dropped in to borrow the piano and perform a duet of Little Drummer Boy.
It’s very cheesy but kinda cool too.
I’m struggling to enter into the Christmas spirit this year, so this helps to melt the ‘bah! humbug!’ feelings a little.
A sad footnote is that Crosby died five weeks after recording the show.
Psychiatrists are concerned about the effects of staying on Facebook too long.
A friend of mine said recently that there were signs of a backlash against the world domination of Facebook. I strongly suspect this is wishful thinking on his part. If the students I teach at University in Italy are anything to go by, the fascination/addiction is pretty total.
When I have lessons in the language lab, they are constantly checking in for updates (or to make updates themselves – gaffes made during classes are posted in real time.
At breaks, where they would previously have gone out for a coffee or a cigarette they now stay in for quality FB time, free of the burden of having to follow the lesson.
In a recent NY Times article one addict nailed the reason why so many are hooked: “Facebook is amazing because it feels like you’re doing something and you’re not doing anything. It’s the absence of doing something, but you feel gratified anyway.”
This sounds spot on to me. As in the Vaughn Monro song from A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court‘ put it “we’re busy doing nothing’ and “we’d like to be unhappy but we never do have the time”.
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