This Christmas in the New Normal

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. How the EU saved Christmas

It’s as predictable and as it is dull, but “bird flu” is here to increase the cost of poultry this holiday season, create shortages and yada yada yada.

We all knew this would happen, but we have a new little wrinkle – The EU is here to save the day!

Several of the UK’s big supermarkets have been forced to source turkeys from elsewhere in Europe to keep shelves stocked this Christmas, after avian flu curtailed UK production.

Asda, Lidl and Morrisons are understood to be stocking branded turkey imported from mainland Europe – a move industry sources described as “unprecedented” – to “protect availability” and ensure sufficient supply for festive meals.

All three retailers’ own-label fresh and frozen turkeys will be entirely British-sourced. However, Morrisons is stocking Bernard Matthews-branded turkey from Poland, and Asda is selling a Cherrywood-branded turkey crown from mainland Europe.

I’ll bet all that Brexiting doesn’t sound like such a good idea anymore, huh?

Besides, we should have cabbage instead of turkey, anyway.

2. Chocs Away

The BBC has noticed that chocolate bars are getting smaller, less chocolatey and yet more expensive.

It’s not just chocolate, of course. Smaller, worse and more expensive is the mantra of the age (covered brilliantly here). It’s also the goal.

They want us to own nothing and be happy. They want us eating gruel with protein cubes to save the planet and they want us to smile while we’re doing it.

But the BBC isn’t going to talk about that, instead they jovially have a light hearted banter about the cost of living spiralling while companies adulterate our food, shrink their portion sizes and charge us more for the privilege.

Haha, what japes.

There’s nothing to be done about it, because it’s all climate change’s fault, and that’s totally real.

So just buy less stuff and stop whining.

3. They’re (still) coming for those wood burners

Labour might forced to slightly ban wood burning stoves, moving forward.

The updated “environment improvement plan” released earlier this month and covered exclusively in the Guardian calls for stricter targets on air pollution, and that means more limitations on stoves – including who can have them, and what they can burn.

This could involve pollution limits being tightened in smoke control areas, which already limit what fuels can be burned: for example, setting out that wood can be burned only in approved types of stoves or burners, not in fireplaces.

It could mean an effective ban on older appliances and that, in some places, it will not be possible to use a wood-burning stove at all.

In a startling coincidence, just a short while after the government said they were going to do this, an “independent report” confirmed it was a really good idea!

It turns out banning wood burning stoves is going to save us all money and stop us dying and make food taste better and just generally make things kinda awesome:

Prohibiting the use of solid fuels like wood and log burners in UK homes could prevent 1,500 deaths annually and save a whopping £54m in NHS funds, according to a recent report.

Environmental consultancy firm Ricardo has urged for stricter regulations on the use of solid fuel burners in homes, including wood burners and log fireplaces, which it links to heart conditions, lung disease, strokes, cancer, and more.

Weird, right?

But amid all this panic, nobody is asking the obvious question: Can Santa even fit down a heat pump?

4. “Generation Scrooge”

Writing for LBC, Thomas Ruys Smith argues young people aren’t giving enough money to charity:

Young people must give more to charity – or risk becoming Generation Scrooge

Apparently it’s not enough that the general cost of existing is increasing month-on-month, while taxation likewise increases, we must also accept that these taxes don’t actually solve society’s problems, and should give money to charity as well.

Charities, you understand, NOT homeless people or the poor directly. They can’t be trusted, instead just give your money to billionaire-founded corporate tax-dodges who will never tell you how they will spend it.

Taxation under threat of prison, charitable donation as a social duty. Your money isn’t really yours.

BONUS: Propaganda of the season

Mean Russian wolves are killing cuddly NATO rindeer, did you know?

I’m not exaggerating:

‘Santa’s reindeer’ are under threat. Are Russia’s wolves to blame?

Apparently wolf attacks on reindeer in Finland are increasing, and the war in Ukraine is to blame. There’s no evidence the wolves are Russian, of course. And even if they are, it’s just wolves being wolves.

Still, let’s have a xenophobic national panic and shoot some endangered animals. Merry Christmas!

BONUS II: Good news of the season!

Researchers have found that flavonoids in chocolate can protect you from the harmful effects of sitting at a desk for too long:

A team of researchers found that there might be a way to reverse the effects of sitting, and it comes in the form of another indulgence that could kill you: cocoa.

Specifically, researchers from the University of Birmingham England say that the flavanols in cocoa can counteract the effects of too much sitting. This is the same compound that gives dark chocolate and red wine their reputation for being somewhat healthy, despite the sugar and alcohol being unhealthy.

Yes, it’s just vice. And yes, modern science is usually rubbish. And Yes, flavinoids can be found in things other than cocoa – fruits, nuts, etc. – but ignore all of that.

Chocolate will save your life, that’s the headline.

So try not to sit still for too long, but if you have to, well then make sure you have a cup of cocoa too.

Christmas Recommendations

We’re four or five deep with This Christmases now, and I’m running out of recommendations to make. Christmases keep on coming, but the production of decent Christmas-related media is decidedly slower. And I suppose it’s the nature of seasonal viewing that we repeat traditions and find comfort in the familiar.

So, I’m going to listen to Carols from Kings and watch Arthur Christmas like I do every year, and invite all of you do whatever evokes the season of giving and allows you to relax and enjoy the moment.

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All told a pretty hectic Christmas season for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention pigs-in-blankets causing cancer, how to talk to racist relatives at the dinner table or how “the far right stole Christmas”.

There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, but there are times to let all of that go and just try and relax and live your life. Remember to take that time, and from all of us here at OffG, please try and have yourself a merry little Christmas.