I SUPPOSE purgatory is a bit like this. The small space between dying and going to heaven… or wherever it is you’re off to. A place filled with limp decorations, a paste of mince pie crumbs in the carpet, and lethal splinters of leftover, desiccated turkey that are guaranteed to penetrate your spleen if you swallow them. It’s Friday. The goodwill frenzy is over. I am bilious with over-indulgence and I don’t even have enough loose change left to go down the pub. I daren’t look in the fridge. I did yesterday and there were the remains of what used to be a stilton cheese in there. By today I…

GREAT Scott, has the world gone mad! No need to answer. The answer is yes! I have just posted a Christmas gift to my mum in England. They needed to see my identification in the post office. “But it’s me,” I said. “I come in every week. You smile at me and ask how my wife is.” “Yessir, but we still need the identification. Just in case.” I don’t blame the post office. They’re nice people. I don’t even blame the Customs people, who are afraid of what I might be sending in the mail. But it’s Christmas! How am I supposed to celebrate this season of peace and goodwill…

I NEVER thought I’d say this, but I’ve had enough of Christmas. Me! Who has played Santa Claus more times than… well, anyone except Santa Claus, probably. Me, who begins to get excited when I open the first door of the Advent calendar, and who builds to an embarrassing crescendo over the following 24 days until I explode on Christmas morning with such cheerfulness and excessive bonhomie that the family makes excuses for me. This year, however, I am finally exhausted. Not by Christmas, but by preparing for Christmas. And not by preparing Christmassy things, either. Stirring puddings, feeding the cake with brandy, buying pressies, putting up decorations, over-decorating the…

I HAD toast for breakfast. Again. There has to be something else in the world for breakfast besides toast. And don’t give me that stuff about muffins or crumpets because that’s just toast with the corners knocked off. Nor will I accept arguments about cornflakes and various other basic cereals that have been processed into little peas or pillows, or coated with something palatable. That’s no better than toast with milk, and all that does it make it go soggy. My father had cornflakes for breakfast all his adult life until he died, aged 76. Can you die of cornflakes? Look, I am not looking for table dancers with my…

IT’LL soon be Christmas. Events are unfolding that have caused me to reflect on the achievements of our species since we crawled out of the primaeval slime and started giving things names. And do you know something? I don’t care if we now have the means to discover what happened just after the Big Bang. I am not even vaguely impressed with information technology that enables me to email Christmas messages to both my friends (on opposite sides of the world) in 15 seconds flat. If they have international agreements on sustainable development and greenhouse gas reduction, well, bully for them. I just want a set of Christmas lights that…