(continued from above, due to error, and if a friendly elf could delete the above two posts, I'd be very grateful)

OK, this is NOT the thread you may think.

Yesterday I walked past the window of Ann Summers (Corporate Sex Chain, for those not in the UK).....and was hit by big bold writing stating:

"We wish you a HORNY Christmas"


Prude, I am not.

Religious zealot, I am not.

Miss Middle England, I am not.

But something inside me died a little....and then, something came alive.


I went in and spoke to the manageress, who was all of, ooh...22....and I tried to explain how deeply offensive I found the poster....but she stared at me, in a kind of "Am I bovvered?" way, puzzled, slightly embarrassed and utterly uncomprehending of the message I was trying to put across.

One of the assitants took her eye off the vibrator she was selling, for a moment to stare at The Weird Woman....then went back to her conversation about 'thrusting'....and a little more of me died...

How has it come to this?

How has the birth of Christ come down to just another reason to Sell Sex On The High Street, in full view of little children passing by....

Would they do this for any other religious festival?   Would they use a Muslim one, a Jewish one in the same way, as another excuse to sell their sex items..?

Is there no barrier left which can no longer stand?

I found it deeply disturbing. I found the vacant reaction I got even more disturbing....

I've written to the company, after I'd spoken to another 'Am I Bovvered?' employee, who again, had no idea what I was talking about whenI mentioned decency, integrity, morals...

Christmas is about Love....not about Sex.    It's not about being 'Horny' but about taking time to think about life itself...thinking what this planet is about, it's people, where it's going to....at least, that's Christmas for me....and being with those you love, or holding those you cannot be with as close as you can possibly bring them, in your heart...

"We wish you a Horny Christmas' is a wish I do not want....

I have faith, not religion, but I respect the fact that many people have a deep religion and Christmas is a very special time for them, because of its significance, and to dumb down, to trivialise, to insult Christ, at the most meaningful time of the Christian calendar really got to me.

You can find Ann Summers online, if you'd like to complain too...or...if you want to get horny, but...I'd far rather if, just for once, people chose to stop giggling, smirking, whatever, and realised that the sexual grooming of our children happens because of ideas such as these, whether the meaning of those ideas is for that to happen or not.

Sexualising Christmas in a coarse and crude way is, for me at least, just one step to far.

I wish everyone, when Christmas arrives, a very peaceful one..filled with love, memories of love, actual love....and I hope that people make love with those they love, rather than bang away like rabbits with complete strangers, using this year's 'must-have Sex Toy' to shove inside your £400 Footballers Wives Handbag...

And yes, I know, I'm gettin' old...but you know something? I'm sure as heck glad that I am, because Christmas has never meant 'horny' to me, not even when I was young....It has only ever meant love, which is the message spread by the man for whom the festival exists in the first place.

Maybe it's time to turn back the clock and bring innocence back again.