It's muzak time again

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go. Take a look at the window displays, the lights twinkling above The Lanes, and the trees being dragged home along Western Road.

It's totally accidental and somewhat frustrating that the above paragraph rhymes.

You would be forgiven for erroneously believing that it's the most wonderful time of the year. It is, after all, the only time when Kirsty MacColl's expletives are acceptable in a retail environment.

As we're all busy spending money we don't have, on stuff we don't need, to impress people we don't like, let's not make matters worse by abusing each other's eardrums.

Bublé, Slade, Geldof, and Cliff should be played only in the home and not in every shop, restaurant, salon, pub, and coffee shop.

The new era of funky, jazzy, almost unrecognisable (but, unfortunately, not quite) Christmas muzak is just as offensive as the classics.

There are a few Christmas-free zones around our city. If you're not up for the same jolly 20 tracks on loop, then hunt them down. (4 Bartholomews, Brighton, BN1 1HG).

And now for an open plea to all those places who've been playing Jingle Bells since October (and won't stop it till mid-January): Do yourself, and our Tinnitus, a favour - and let it go, let it go, let it go.