Every year I visit the charity shop and off load all the misguided Christmas presents I’ve been given. I don’t wish to seem ungrateful, but the socks my Aunt sent me with individually knitted toes are at best uncomfortable and at worst a crime against style (possibly even humanity). They have to go. And as […]
How do you Motivate an Elf?
Things are getting a bit tight. It is the 22nd of December and Father Christmas and his bunch of elves are not on top of the situation. They are not even close. They have the backlog to end all backlogs: Wishes have not been processed Presents have not been made Wrapping is at a stand […]
The Great Christmas Scam
It is all a nasty little trick, don’t believe a word of it. It goes something like this: When I was little, I was told that on the evening of the 24th December Father Christmas leaves his home (near the North Pole) with his trusty flight of reindeer and whizzes around the world, climbing up and […]
Spies Like Us
I have reached that age when for Christmas I am given socks, chocolates and paperbacks. I am half way through this year’s crop of paperbacks and found this quote in a John le Carre novel. “A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world” I learnt the same lesson working in a […]
If a Job’s Worth Doing
It is worth doing well. God alone knows what the neighbours think. Happy Christmas