The Santa Diaries Radio 4
iPM Radio 4
Yes, it is totally ridiculous to begin 2018 with a look back to Christmas ... but trust me.
If you want a laugh, get on the iPlayer. If you’ve ever had a duff job as the back end of a pantomime donkey or as an ugly gherkin inspector (the gherkins were ugly, get it?) in Hamburg – then The Santa Diaries is for you.
Writer David Sedaris was once a devilish elf.
There are too many moments, it would be rude to spoil it. Suffice to say that the big New York department store let him choose his elf name – he was Crumpet – and that all human life waited for Santa there.
When an adult sized him up in his green velveteen elf outfit and told him how ridiculous he looked, he wanted to say, “At least I’m getting paid for it, you’re doing it for free.”
Then there the people who asked for a “traditional Santa” .... a white one.
As well as others who wanted a Santa of colour – apparently Jerome, the black Santa, was just not black enough.
And when you’ve watched a woman lose her head and screech at her daughter: “That’s enough, get up on that man’s lap right now!” or you’ve witnessed a mother allow her little boy to pee into the artificial snow, then you know that, indeed, Santa’s wonderland make rich pickings for a man with an eye for comedy who can put the grot in the grotto.
2017 was the year of the podcast – think Dirty John – I’m not over the pretend doctor in the scruffy scrubs and the gullible woman who secretly married him yet.
And then there’s the Moth for beautiful stories. And there’s Kermode and Mayo talking films which is gold.
Or you can sidle over to iPM and listen to: What I did to keep a deathbed promise.
A woman said her husband’s aunt could have given Thatcher lessons in assertiveness. She wanted her ashes spread across the front doorstep of Harrods so she could go all across the world.
Listen to how the woman fulfilled aunty’s dying wish, watched as a Japanese couple stood in aunty’s ashes and whispered softly: “You’re on your way, kid.”
