All that glitters is not good

I hate to sound curmudgeonly but what the fuck is it with Christmas cards and glitter. I can sort of understand the idea, though not the appeal, in the northern hemisphere where it makes the front of the card vaguely reminiscent of that sparkle from frost, but why do they still do it on cards here where 'tis the season to be sunburned and wander about in boardies. There's no frost and the closest thing to a light dusting of ice can probably be found on the local crystal meth dealer.

But more than that, even where it makes a sort of sense the fucking stuff is a colossal pain in the arse. It gets everywhere. I think it may have been Billy Connolly who described it as the greetings card equivalent of anthrax, and I completely get what he means. I've just opened several days worth of Christmas cards and there's now so much bloody glitter on the table, the carpet and me that I wish I'd opened them in the garden, possibly with a lead lined box for the cards and some means of getting all the glitter off me before coming back into the house.

It goes against the grain to wish someone would ban the wretched stuff but if the greetings card industry can't come up with a way of making sure the damn stuff sticks permanently to the card I'm going to start sending envelopes full of it to Hallmark. Nothing else, just glitter. And I'll keep it up until they begin spraying some lacquer or something on the cards to keep the damn stuff on, or until the people I know stop buying them.