{"id":5396,"date":"2011-11-09T11:30:17","date_gmt":"2011-11-09T11:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=5396"},"modified":"2011-11-09T16:19:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-09T16:19:48","slug":"oxford-street-christmas-lights-turn-on-in-ruddy-november-ffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/oxford-street-christmas-lights-turn-on-in-ruddy-november-ffs\/","title":{"rendered":"Oxford Street Christmas lights are turned on – in ruddy November, FFS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Oxford<\/p>\n

Here’s a view of the Christmas decorations already up at Oxford Circus. A few days into November!<\/p>\n

In my mind, the start of December is the earliest<\/em> anyone should be considering getting all Christmassy, but the demands of commerce means that the festive season seems to start earlier and earlier every year.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Oxford<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong though – I love Christmas – but not when it turns into a two month long product-shifting\u00a0spectacular,\u00a0starting\u00a0from the first day of November.<\/p>\n

And I’m not just imagining that they’re being turned earlier on\u00a0either: in previous years it was the\u00a013th Nov<\/a>\u00a0in 2008,\u00a07th Nov<\/a>\u00a0in 2007,\u00a015th Nov\u00a0<\/a>in 2005,\u00a016th Nov<\/a>\u00a0in 2004,\u00a019th Nov<\/a>\u00a0in 1999.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Oxford<\/p>\n

[Debenhams, Dec 2009]<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in the 50s<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Oxford Street\u00a0Christmas\u00a0lights\u00a0are a relatively new\u00a0phenomenon, first starting in\u00a01959, five years after nearby Regent Street had started the tradition.<\/p>\n

The Oxford Street display didn’t start off too well though, with a falling 15 foot candle killing a\u00a0pedestrian\u00a0below.<\/p>\n

\"Oxford<\/p>\n

[House of Fraser, Dec 2009]<\/em><\/p>\n

Lights out after the Summer of Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

As the recession hit, the lights went out in 1967 and didn’t return until 1978 when a rather unfestive laser beam was projected along the length of the street. It looked kind of cool, but the idea was\u00a0abandoned\u00a0on safety grounds.<\/p>\n

Since then , the event has steadily commercialised, with various celebs and Z-listers being dragged in to turn on the lights.<\/p>\n

This year it was the turn of \u00a0instantly-forgettable pop fluff\u00a0The Saturdays<\/a>, while previous years have seen Kim Carrey (2009), S Club (2001), Charlotte Church (2000), Spice Girls (1996), Cliff Richard (1990), Bob Geldof (1985) and Pat Phoenix back in 1983 do the honours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a view of the Christmas decorations already up at Oxford Circus. A few days into November! In my mind, the start of December is the earliest anyone should be … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17],"tags":[24,10],"class_list":["post-5396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","tag-christmas","tag-london"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/christmas-2011-oxford-street-01.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-1p2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5396"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5398,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5396\/revisions\/5398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}