Opinion : Has Wycombe lost the battle for Christmas shoppers before the first fairy light is even lit?

‘They’ve got Edd China!’, my good self suddenly exclaimed while sitting in an armchair at my neighbours house.

‘What?’, said my neighbour. ‘They’ve got Edd China!’, I replied.

‘Whose got him?’, asked my neighbour. ‘They’ve got Edd China!’, I replied.

‘Are you OK, Ivor?’, enquired my neighbour. ‘They’ve got Edd China!’, I replied.

It was at this point my neighbour looked down at my portable phone which was displaying an article from the news section of this site headlined ‘Marlow’s Christmas Lights to be switch on by Edd China on Thu 22nd Nov 2018‘.

Such was my surprise and awe at reading the headline that for a five full minutes all your humble servant could say was ‘They’ve got Edd China!’. For once yours truly had been rendered speechless, senseless and totally amazed.

Once I recovered some sense of normality I set about explaining to my neighbour all about the gentleman in question indeed only a few moments earlier both my neighbour and myself had been watching my neighbours television and seen him restore a classic Chevrolet Stepside pickup truck.

This year, 2018, the special guest at the Christmas light switch-on in High Wycombe is to be an impersonator of a well known pop star.

Yet again Marlow has trumped Wycombe when it comes to public events. Indeed one has to ask the question ‘Has Wycombe lost the battle for Christmas shoppers before the first fairy light is even lit?‘. Sadly this year my good self fears so.

So there it is. Marlow has out done Wycombe fairly and squarely. I know which switching-on Ceremony that my good self will be attending and it certainly isn’t going to be the one in High Wycombe.

Have pity for the poor shop keepers of Wycombe looking for a spring-board to sales success during the festive period. It looks like it isn’t going to happen.

But it could all be saved. There’s still time to turn things around, all it takes is vision, leadership and some forward thinking. Three things that I happen to possess by the bucket full.

So what would yours truly do to save the day in Wycombe?

Well, how about cancelling the pop-star impersonator while we can still get the money back and instead offer £20k to the man from the TV series ‘Combat Dealers‘ to turn up in one of his armoured vehicles (suitably decorated for the festive nature of the event of course) to press the plunger and illuminate Wycombe’s lights? Maybe he could even rig up some pyrotechnics to make the switching on go with an ‘extra bang’?

Driving a tank down Wycombe High Street would perhaps even help to level up the road surface and get rid of the terrible ruts in the faux cobbled surface.

The presence of a tank in Frogmoor would also help to deter the yobbo element in the crowd from spoiling things and if trouble did break out and things got out of control the police could always hide inside the tank and lock the hatches shut until any danger had passed?

What do you think?

My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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