Three Christmas cheers for Joss Stone

I was having a lovely morning until I was made irrationally furious by an advert that popped up on my Instagram.

Adverts pop up on my Instagram all the time, in fact I’m more surprised when a photo taken by someone I know pops up on Instagram, because Meta has decided that I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to carefully curating a measured feed from people who existence I’m generally aware of.

The advert in question was for a Christmas concert of some description that’s being held later in the year by songstress Joss Stone. She was big a decade or two ago, I remember that. Very soulful, nose piercing, no shoes. I never bought an album, but I could sit through one of her songs.

“Hello England,” says Joss. She’s sitting in an easy chair with a red ball gown of some description and no shoes, obvs, and she’s very excited about her upcoming Christmas performance. “I’m coming to bring some Christmas cheer,” she explains. There are some details, which I confess I don’t remember in any great detail, at which point the advert has failed in its purpose but at the same time we must also be aware that it’s not really for me, despite what Instagram might think.

Poor Joss can barely get two words out – it’s the ‘Hello England’ that winds me up. Americans can just about get away with that sort of thing because we know that they’re geographically challenged. They don’t know where anything is and they can’t say Worcestershire. But Joss should know better. Unless the Welsh, Scots and Northern Irish are purposely excluded from her festive shindig, in which case fine. Let alone any other nationalities that might wish to pop along.

And then it’s the notion that Joss Stone is the sole purveyor of Christmas cheer. I should imagine she’s lugging it around in a bum bag because that dress doesn’t look like it has pockets, but thank goodness she’s coming over from whichever permanently sunny tax haven in which she resides to lighten up our gloomy little lives.

It’s the same mentality that drove Gal Gadot to do that ghastly video rendition of Imagine with her celebrity chums during Covid (Joss might have been in it even) as if the mere sight of them were enough to draw us out of our morose introspection.

I shouldn’t be too hard on Joss Stone, I’m sure she genuinely is excited about singing Santa Baby at the Swindon Arts Centre in November (all made up) and the light and joy she’ll bring to the world, I can be generous enough to grant her that benefit of the doubt.

But this next little while is about knuckling down and pushing through to the end of the year, all celebrities should have the good sense to hibernate in the sub-tropics wherever their second or third homes are until we’ve got the stomach to deal with them again in the spring.