WHETHER it’s collecting the royalties from 40-year-old hits or knocking out children’s books now they’re not on TV, some celebs would be stuffed without Christmas. Like these…
Noddy Holder
Imagine if royalties ceased as soon as your record was no longer in the charts. Noddy would have needed to keep writing hits in an increasingly alien musical landscape. In 1988 Public Enemy would be releasing It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, while Noddy would be trapped in a glam-rock timewarp, cranking out songs like Cum On Rok The Tinzel that only reached number 63 in the charts.
Delia Smith
Okay, she’s got Delia’s Complete Cookery Course as a year-round earner, but the birth of Christ has served Delia well. There’s not just Delia Smith’s Christmas, there’s also Delia’s Happy Christmas. Coming up with the title for that must have been a punishing all-nighter. In addition there is Delia Smith’s Winter Collection, if you still lack the basic human skill of cooking meat with fire.
David Walliams
The genius of David’s books is that they’re clearly based on a formula and can’t take long to write, hence Awful Auntie, Boogie Bear and Gangsta Granny. You may resent buying Ejaculating Egret or whatever for your kid, but now David has been ditched by Britain’s Got Talent and Little Britain is racist, just see it as a heartwarming act of Christmas charity.
Jools Holland
Jools’ Annual Hootenanny is a sort of retirement plan after Squeeze and The Tube, and it’s worth a f**k of a lot more than your pension. It’s forged a new Christmas tradition, namely being stuck at home with your folks while the music lurches between artists you don’t like and ones only Jools remembers. Essential listening if you’re simultaneously a fan of Beth Ditto, Jeff Beck, Bob Mould, Professor Green and one of The Ronettes.
Nigella Lawson
Nigella wrote the somewhat bluntly titled Nigella Christmas, but her TV shows are the big hitters financially. Nigella’s Christmas Kitchen shook up Christmas cookery TV by throwing aspirational lifestyle fantasies and the suggestion that she’d f**k you into the mix. Now, older and wiser, we feel the show should be called Nigella’s You’ll Never Be As Middle-Class As Me But Let’s Have Some Glazed Carrots.
Cliff Richard
Cliff can always be relied on to shit out something festive, like last year’s Heart of Christmas. Some songs – like that sleighbell-filled abomination – disappear without trace, but he just chucks them at the wall and sees what sticks. In 1988 Mistletoe and Wine hit paydirt, but sadly for committed Christian Cliff, it also means he is undoubtedly going to Hell.
King Charles
The monarch, not the breed of spaniel. Charles is not a popular king, due to being a tetchy, miserable shit and an anachronistic parasite. Luckily the King or Queen’s Christmas speech allows them to spout some guff about peace, happiness and service to others and look as if they serve some purpose. Which keeps the public funds rolling in, and with Charles receiving £86.3 million last year, it pisses on other celebs’ Christmas hustles.
