Wandering around a grimly festive Tesco last week sparked a long-forgotten memory. I was shopping with my mother at the age of about 8, and my eye was caught by the cover of the Christmas Radio Times. It was a photograph of a chortling Santa sitting on a snowy log and brandishing his Radio Times. He looked pretty excited about the Birds of a Feather and The Russ Abbott Show seasonal specials, and rightly so.
So far, so unexciting. But then I realised what Santa was holding. The same magazine that I was! With the same cover showing Santa on a log waving a Radio Times. And in that picture, the Santa was holding a magazine with a cover showing Santa on a log waving a Radio Times. And so on until the final miniscule image of Santa's magazine was indecipherable.
Bear in mind that this was in the days before Photoshop or digital trickery, and that I had a tiny brain more used to thinking about Silly Putty and Micro Machines. I literally stared at it for about 10 minutes, trying to comprehend what this could mean. Was I dreaming? Did Santa travel in time? I asked my Mum how it was possible, and she said she didn't know. I felt unnerved and uncomfortable, and thought about it for days afterwards.
I think that was the first time I really wrestled hard with a problem that I couldn't make head nor tail of. I've obviously had plenty of practice since (the last episode of Battlestar Galactica recently provoked a similar reaction) but that was when my general ignorance in the ways of the world became brutally clear. Thanks, Santa.
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