Get into the groove

As a child, I liked to watch the contemplative entertainment that was broadcast on the late afternoon of Christmas Eve in order to tide hyperexcited Hun brats over until The Great Gift Exchange that would follow later. Over here, in case you don't know, we have none of this "unwrapping your presents on Christmas morning clad in your jim-jams" nonsense: German gifts get given on Christmas Eve, after the frugal Christmas Eve meal and the obligatory singing of carols. Ordnung muss sein!

This programme -- which I loved to the point of apoplexy up until, oh, 1975 -- was called "Wir warten auf's Christkind" ("We're waiting for the Christ Child" - "The Christ Child" being Martin Luther's Reformation answer to Popish Santa Claus).

Judging by the kind of excited hush "all over the world, tonight", I feel we'd all deserve a similar media event. Something along the lines of: "We're waiting for the Hockey Mom". To tide us over until The Great Showdown, which we all hope will end in a bagful of clangers and meaningless silences dropped by Sarah Palin during her debate with Joe Biden.

And now, as then, I find myself teetering on the brink of terrified expectancy by the threat of disappointment:

Only that the question, "Will I get the Barbie doll I wished for?" has been transformed into: "Will she be as breathtakingly stupid again as we all want her to be?"

To take your mind off such obsessive thoughts (should you be suffering from the same jitters as I do), you might wish to turn to Steven Wells's musical portrait of Palin, in which he depicts the good woman from Wasilla as "totally rock'n'roll".

I like this line in particular:

Palin combines the DIY ethic of punk with the hamfisted amateurism of a Balkan Eurovision entry.

More the latter than the former, I would say.