London Christmas Lights Don’t Switch Me on

For the second year in a row, myself and a friend decided to travel up to London to see the Oxford Street Christmas lights being turned on. Having been the year before, we should have known not to revisit!

Unlike previous years, Regents Street and Leicester Square’s switch on coincided with Oxford Street’s. Which we thought beforehand would be fantastic, we would be able to wander the streets of London and see all the lights in one evening. Or so we though. It just added to the stress and strain of the evening.

For what should have been a pleasurable, festive event, we, and everyone around us, spent the whole evening moaning and shouting. It was a very badly organised event; the crowds were not controlled with any ease, causing pushing, shouting and people being crushed against the barriers. As far as I know, nothing serious happened to anyone, but there could have been injuries. The stewards were demanding people move through the crowds, when there was really no space for people to move into. It was havoc. Nobody, excluding those lucky few who braved the cold for hours to wait at the front of the barriers, could see anything. It would have been just as effective to watch the performance of Peter Andre at home.

Peter Andre. To be fair to him, he wasn’t bad at all. He sang live and gave a nice performance. However, to travel all the way to london to see Peter… not my idea of money well spent.

Even the switch on was a disaster. Some of the lights came on during the count down, and then went off again after they were ’switched on’ by Jim Carrey. It seems Christmas light switch on this year are not going to plan. West Quay in Southampton turned its lights on, only for one to catch fire, again, causing a small amount of havoc.

The lights themselves were nice. Different to last year, as they chose to use ‘A Christmas Carol’ theme, due to the new film being released the same day. However, I would recommend in future to anyone thinking of going to see the big turn on, to give it a miss and go another day and enjoy the Christmas atmosphere minus the crowds.