![]() ![]() Everyone has to deal with disgusting things, being sick, going to the lavatory, having diarrhoea." It's supposed to be a pre-sexual age." Was this where his fascination with human grot – the exudations of Fungus the Bogeyman and his world of bodily fluids, zits, corns, snot, mucus and slime – got started? "No," said Briggs firmly. He recalls the extraordinary detail that, at his primary school, a little girl told her class that she'd found traces of her father's sperm on a lavatory seat, had put it inside her – and later given birth to "half a baby". ![]() In another column, he admits his bafflement, as a child, about sex. But they stand there looking at it, and taking photographs. There's nothing to see – a tiny little stream and an ordinary little wooden bridge, which isn't even the original one. "They come to see me, for interviews, and they know Pooh Sticks Bridge is half an hour's drive away. In one, he reveals that he's constantly badgered by Japanese fans who seek him out at his Sussex retreat – and, to kill two birds with one stone, take him along to visit the bridge immortalised in the Pooh Sticks chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh. He was told he could write about anything that caught his attention, and his columns have tackled some very odd subjects. He was asked to write a column by Naim Attallah, who funded The Oldie in its early days. He isn't jolly he grumbles about the cold, the blooming rain, the rooftops, the flipping strain of delivering presents all night, before he can go back to his fire, his cat, his cosy chair and glass of Scotch. Briggs imagined Santa Claus as a British working man, an ordinary bloke weighed down by the drudgery of reindeer and gifts. He's a world-class grumbler and, despite his lack of white beard and straining waistband, you can't help thinking how he resembles his 1973 creation, Father Christmas. ![]() The others, these dark-haired blokes of about 40, I can hardly tell the difference between them") and the trials of age ("When you get older everything takes so bloody long, getting the food, clearing up, washing up, getting the bedroom ready, having a bath."). I couldn't sit through that, however much I like Michael Kitchen") and British politics ("Nigel Farage is the only person I like because he's slightly amusing. I need it to keep in touch through incoming mail, but that's all I use it for") and television shows ("I looked up Foyle's War in the Radio Times and it was on for two hours, I mean two solid hours. He grumbles about technology ("I hardly touch my iPad thing because it gets me in a temper. There's a draught from the door his mouth is too dry to let him speak there's a script of the new Fungus the Bogeyman film he hasn't had time to read. ![]() As he moves at a fast 80-year-old shuffle around his partner Liz's house near Plumpton Racecourse, his conversation is a kind of stream-of-grumble. Whatever you’re looking for to get in the mood for this next month of merriment and Mariah Carey, you’ll find it under our proverbial tree.It takes five minutes in Raymond Briggs's company to realise who he reminds you of. Others feature a lot of swearing, explosions and even a few bloody slayings. As you’ll see on our list of the 50 all-time greatest yuletide classics, some subvert the tropes of the season and cast a critical eye at the more commercial aspects of the holiday. Here’s the thing, though: sure, most Christmas movies are fluffy exercises in nostalgia, imparting messages about the importance of showing goodwill toward your fellow man, wrapped up with a tinge of innocent consumerism… but not all of them. No matter how much of a cynical, hardcore cineaste you think you are, there’s at least one holiday-themed flick that instantly transports you back to childhood and fills you with warm, fuzzy memories of childhood – like a cup of hot cocoa for the soul. Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year, and Christmas movies are part of that as much as any lit-up pine tree or jolly fat man. ![]()
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