Et habitavit in nobis.

In my youth the English year was given shape by the great festivals of the Christian religion.  The build up to Christmas began in late November on the First Sunday in Advent. Once the Christmas season had ended on the 6th January, the next significant event was pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, followed around four weeks later by hot-cross buns on Good Friday and Easter eggs two days after that.

   Nowadays - in our post-modern age - all these events have been emptied of significance. Christmas begins in August and has lost all pretence of being anything other than a orgy of consumerism. Nativity plays have become an endangered species, and the festival itself is embodied by ‘Santa’, as Father Christmas is called these days, rather than the Christ child. Hot-cross buns can be bought throughout the year rather than only on Good Friday, and these days Easter-eggs have as much to do with Easter as that festival had to do with the Celtic goddess Eostre from whom it took its name.

   I’m not writing this in any particular spirit of nostalgia, or from any belief that the England of my youth was a more religious place than it is now. It’s simply that when I was  a child  I lived in a country which was still culturally christian; England - Italy is a different matter -no longer is. And that culture gave a shape to the year which it no longer has. The only festival still tied to a particular day is Hallowe’en, re-imported from the States a few decades ago. It was unknown in my youth. 

   However, for those of us who worship at the shrine of Cupertino the year still has a shape.  Whisperings amongst the Magi of the computer industry begin in February. They claim to have seen signs and portents that a wondrous new  birth is imminent in California. Then in June John the Baptist Jobs reveals the name of the saviour and announces the date of its birth. Like the Christian Advent there will a few weeks to wait and prepare for it to come and dwell amongst us. 

   This year, though, there was a difference. The Americans, British, French and Germans received the saviour on June 24th; the rest of the world had to wait  until July 30th. Now I can understand Britain being first in the queue: after all its government’s ‘special relationship’ with the States provided the pattern for the one between Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. But the cheese-eating surrender monkeys and the krauts? What did they do to deserve Apple’s special favour? And then things got even worse. Unlike the favoured four, the rest of the world was not allowed to pre-order. Instead one had to wait until the official release date, July 30th, to place an order. On the 30th I went to the shop where I’d bought my 3G two years ago, not really expecting them to have an iPhone 4. To my delight they did. Then delight turned to dismay as they revealed that they only had the 16 gigabyte version. So I placed my order for the 32 gigabyte model and went away dejected. It finally arrived yesterday. After four weeks of waiting I’ve almost lost interest. I hope the Three Wise Men didn’t feel the same way by the time they eventually made it to Bethlehem.