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FRANK'S PLASTIC SANTA CAUSES INTERNATIONAL INCIDENT
Fortune
Magazine describes Chiswick as "Scrooge
City" because of reaction to American's
Christmas decorations
What
started as a minor dispute between neighbours
is threatening to turn into a major(-ish) international
incident with Fortune magazine taking up cudgels
on behalf of Frank "the Yank" Nevik
and his montage of plastic Christmas characters.
Frank
decided to bring a traditional American Christmas
display to his house in Chiswick.
As
h e related on
the discussion forum,
"Back
when I lived in the US, I used to put out a
four foot tall plastic Santa that lit up and
played 'Jingle Bells' and 'White Christmas.'
Over the years, I added a snowman, and a sled
with four little reindeer, including Rudolph.
They all light up and it was all very festive."
Although
from this description it is impossible to imagine
why, some of his neighbours objected to the
display, saying that it was not the done thing
in Chiswick. Now Santa has been banished to
the back garden and the snowman has ended up
in the bathroom. There is no word as yet of
the reindeer.
The
incident attracted the attention of Justin
Fox (yes Fox - we are not making this up),
the Chiswick-based London correspondent of
Fortune
magazine. In an article entitled "Scrooge
City" he describes how the signs of the
season are hard to find in these parts with
little Christmas display on shops or homes
in the city of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".
To make matters worse he describes Chiswick
as a "semi-suburb".
He
blasts the anti-Christmas-light bias saying:
"What
a load of humbug. If the British could boast
an impressive indigenous Christmas tradition,
like the Scandinavians, I could understand
them being up in arms about tacky American-style
Santas. But they can't! In fact, the main U.K.-specific
Christmas traditions that I've discerned are
listening repeatedly to Slade's egregious 1973
hit, "Merry Xmas Everybody," and
watching endless hours of telly."
The
article comes at a sensitive time for Chiswick-US
relations just one week after the revelation
that an attempt was being made to stop Starbucks
opening on the High Road.
Merry
Christmas Everbody!
December
23 , 2001
Discuss
Frank's Plastic Lighted Menagerie on the Forum
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