Is it only me that is full of nothing but absolutle respect, admiration and something close to awe, for the Jail Bird who set up Dorset's 'Lapland' this christmas?
In a culture of get rich quick schemes, Americanised 'where there's a blame there's a claim' and constant boundary pushing by Marketing companies targeting Kids and Old people, has this chap really done anything wrong? It could be argued that what he has done is merely an extension and a result of this society. It probably has nothing to do with him being a hardened criminal. Maybe.
So what exactly has he done? Put aside the righteous fury of parents who were fooled by the marketing, put aside trading standards' shutting down of the park, forget about the ethical and moral issues of the whole thing, THIS IS ABSOLUTLY HILARIOUS. It is funny on so many levels. First, lets look at what 'Englands Lapland' actually entailed. Described on the website as:
'An enticing and magical Christmas Wonderland, home to Santa Claus and all his little helpers, the English lapland has everything you need to make this Christmas extra special. Santa himself will be on hand to give out presents, make your way to his mystic grotto through our magic tunnel of lights where you will be surrounded by Santa's friends. For the parents there is a bustling Christmas market where you can get some last minute shopping done and there is fun for all on the Christmas Ice Rink."
I love how bad it was. We have all seen the pictures. In essence it is a muddy carpark in Dorset. Even the sign at the entrance is bad - It is a traffic cone, with a bit of card taped to it that says "Lap Land this way --->"When you enter, the first thing you see is a badly painted Christmas Nativety scene nailed to a fence. Santa's grotto was a shed and a fat man. The tunnel of lights was, literally a tree with fairy lights on it. The bustling Christmas Market was a 12 x 12 Marquee with some trestle tables and tinsel and the Ice Rink was out of order.
The owner had paid some agency staff £5 an hour to dress in poorly fitting elf, reindeer and polar bear costumes and built sheds which housed chained up huskies and reindeer. The best part for me was the line on the website that read "Look how cold and real the snow looks". As you can see from the picture, unless snow in Lapland is actually mud in texture and colour then this is really pushing the boundaries of 'poetic license'.
I suppose the best thing to come out of this is that in defiance of the great long held British tradition of not complaining and stiff upper lipness, some parents actually ended up punching some of the staff. As if their crying kids beautiful vision of Christmas wasn't destroyed enough by the state of the Christmas Wonderland they were promised, they then had to witness Daddy punching Santa Claus in the face before running amok amongst his little helpers. Merry Christmas.
