American Fez

Farewell 2007, We Hardly Knew Ye

See also: Farewell 2006

From Scratch

I've recently received some extremely depressing news: at the chime of Monday's midnight bell we have to go all the way back to bloody January again and do it over. Then February, March, and so on.
I seem to recall that this happened last year as well, and the year before that too. Why can't we just keep going forward for heaven's sake? If you ask me, it's a plain, downright failure of imagination that's responsible for such regressive scheduling.
Fortunately, I have some wonderful ideas for new month names and national holidays that could be associated with them, but I'm not revealing my year extension plans here because the calendar people will obviously steal them without giving me any credit. Suffice it to say, Cupidary 13th will make the first of May feel like a wet Monday morning.

See also: Calendar Plans

And Keeping Track

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

Those readers interested in my recent correspondence with Santa Claus, however one way it may have been, will hopefully be pleased to learn that the old duffer apparently considered the standard of my behavior throughout the year as worthy of his personal beneficence. In other words, I discovered the new Edward Burra biography stuffed into my stocking on Christmas morning.
Naturally, I have long been aware that Burra visited Boston on several occasions, but until leafing through the book I had absolutely no idea that the artist twice rented Beacon Hill accommodation during the 1950s, at Anderson and Revere Streets respectively, literally a mere paint brush flick's distance from where I live today. Why this proximity to Burra in space but not time should inspire me so, I don't know, but it does.

The image above is Burra's 1930 watercolor called 'The Green Fig,' which I've borrowed from the British Council's website,  although I shouldn't think that they will mind since we are both currently promoting British art. Actually, I'm thinking of recreating this still life in my apartment tonight as I already possess most of the elements, except for that damn Player's Navy Cut matchbox. But perhaps I should have a bit of a lie down first. After all, it has been a very busy festive season for me.

Post Christmas Anachronist Dioramas

Some over-baptized, Lord-praising maniac decided it would be a devoutly good idea to buy my nephew a Playmobil Nativity Scene for Christmas. Now, although it may very well be called a Playmobil, I defy any child to actually 'play' with this artifact. Let's face it, besides the three wise men and the smelly shepherds arriving at the virgin birth zone, the characters don't really do anything. They simply stand around and worship the holy infant all through the drearily silent night. In other words, the Playmobil Nativity Scene is an extremely tedious toy whose only redeeming feature is a vaguely amusing plastic camel.
Fortunately, and predictably, it wasn't long before my nephew's other gifts began to invade the sancity of the manger. At noon, a casual examination of the already forgotten Nativity Scene revealed a rubberized Tyrannosaurus Rex standing over to the upturned crib, and a scurvy dog from the Playmobil Pirate Ship apparently about to engage the Playmobil Mary in, well, whatever pirates get up to when they encounter an unprotected female. Where were Joseph, assorted shepherds and the Three Kings of Orient? They were busy manning the walls of the Lego medieval castle while it was fired upon by the Playmobil Pirate Ship, before that keeled over after being side swiped by a flashing Transformer.
"Oh grow up," my sister said to me.

Many Creatures Stirring

This Christmas Eve, while all those once-per-year churchgoers are celebrating their incense overdosed Midnight Mass, I shall be enduring a very traditional Stephenesque family Midnight Mess.
As the clock chimes twelve, we shall suddenly wake up and realize with mounting horror that we have forgotten to start defrosting our Christmas goose. Then the dog will get excited and decide that he needs to squirt out a festive turd or two in the garden. Naturally, all the commotion will rouse the kids: "Has Santa has been yet?"
"No. And neither has this damn dog yet. So go back to sleep."
Merry Christmas. May it not be a messy one.

Can I Open It Now?

As Christmas becomes more and more commercialized each year, surely it is high time we festive consumers took a break from our frantic shopping to remember what a traditional Christmas is really all about. In other words, surely it is high time that we put the "I" back into Christmas.
Because Christmas should just be all about me: what gifts I shall be getting; which family members I will be snubbing; what chocolate puddings I shall be eating; which women I shall be kissing under the mistletoe; and so on. These are the important themes of the Christmas season. That Mary's Boy Child and the Three Wizened Men nonsense is just so distracting.

A Very John Keats Christmas

I was feeling under the weather because all the sedge had withered from the lake and I'd got a nasty cough as usual. And then the La Belle Dame Sans Merci had invited me to her annual Christmas party. I don't normally like parties because I always end up just standing in the corner alone and palely loitering all the time, but I forced myself to venture out anyway, despite feeling so haggard and woe-begone, otherwise I'd never hear the end of it.
It was a bring your own booze affair, and so I brought a bottle of  Manna Dew, which is a bit like an Elfin version of eggnog. Anyway, I go in the front door and there she was, La Belle Dame Sans Merci in the meads - where else! - with her long hair, light feet and wild eyes.
"Thanks for coming." she said, giving me kisses four. "I've just got to check on my other guests and then I'll come back and have you in my thrall."
"Where do you want me to put this?" I said, indicating my bottle of Manna Dew.
"How wonderful." La Belle Dame said. "Just put it on the table with the Relish Sweet and the Honey Wild." But I could tell that what she was actually thinking was: 'Oh Christ. Not another bottle of Manna Dew.'
Anyway, she left and I wandered around the fragrant room, checking out her Christmas garlands, and then her CD collection, which contained lots of faery song, as you might expect.
La Belle Dame came back a few minutes later carrying a big box tied-up with ribbon. "Happy Christmas," she said. "I got it from that Endymion store in the mall. Hope you like it."
I unwrapped the parcel and opened the box. Inside was a Grecian urn, one of those ones whose shape is haunted by leaf-fringed legends from the dales of Arcady.
"It's the unravished bride of quietness model," La Belle Dame explained. "With an extra foster child of silence and slow time added on."
"Gosh. Thanks." I said. "It's just what I've always wanted."
There was an awkward pause before La Belle Dame growled, "Didn't you get me anything?"
"Er...no."
I saw her starved lips in the gloam with horrid warning gaping wide, and then I awoke and found me here, on the cold hill side. The sedge has withered from the lake and no Christmas carolers sing.

See also Ode On A Grecian Funerary Urn

Pontius Pilate's Christmas Party

I have been selected to sit on a jury tomorrow at the pompously named Suffolk Superior Courthouse. They request that jurors wear "appropriate attire," and so I shall attend proceedings dressed as a carol singing character from one of those collectible Charles Dickens' Christmas Village models. After all, does the Commonwealth of Massachusetts seriously think I will vote to imprison someone at Christmas time? As the late Auberon Waugh so rightfully observed, "the Law is an ass."
Civic duty? Bah humbug. I'm pretty certain they'll send me home early.

Best of 2007

As the days of December dwindle, drawing the year 2007 to its Christmassy conclusion, I thought perhaps it might be constructive to elbow my way into the year's congregation of mass entertainment products and retrieve from that inchoate mob what appears to me to be the best of an inevitably bad bunch. Naturally, since almost all contemporary entertainment is completely worthless, my choices are simply current re-issues of books and movies from previous decades, sometimes with new cover designs and sometimes not.
For example, my favorite book this year was the Overlook Press republication of John Cowper Powys' massive 1951  novel, Porius, which the pseudo-Welsh old goat believed to be his best work. Since Porius was initially slashed to pieces when first published, this version is a sort of "director's cut," and Overlook's editors apparently believe that the book is now presented in the manner Powys intended. In hardcover, Porius could probably stun an ox if dropped on the animal's head. It is, after all, what they used to call "a weighty tome." Still, it is well worth spending your deep mid-winter engrossed in Powys' story of Romanized Welsh comings and goings.
Musically, 2007 was worse than ever. I haven't purchased music by a new artiste since I don't know when. Fortunately, however, Roy Harper's ambitious 1971 album Stormcock was released, re-mastered and repackaged, so I could buy that. The stormcock, as all ornithologists know, will even sing its song into the heart of a gale, something Roy Harper has been doing ever since he escaped from the lunatic asylum in the 1960s. This is probably Harper's best album and it wipes the floor with Devendra Banhart or any of those people.
I went to the movies several times in 2007, but I didn't like anything I saw there. Luckily, Patrice Leconte's 1989 film Monsieur Hire was released on DVD. Starring Michel Blanc and Sandrine Bonnaire, the film is based on Georges Simenon's novel Les Fiançailles de M. Hire, and, as Roger Ebert observed, is about "conversations that never are held, desires that never are expressed, fantasies that never are realized, and murder." If it is any help, I thought of this movie a lot while watching The Lives of Others, the only good film I can think of from the last few years.

Santa: He Does Exist, But Unfortunately He's A Moron

My first and last experience of Santa's Grotto was in the December of 1971, when I was a mere four years old. In those days, unlike most boys of my age, I was very keen on Ruritanian literature, especially the celebrated philosophical works of the late eighteenth century. Consequently, when Santa asked me what I wanted for Christmas I told him that a copy of Heinrick Schleist's famous codex, A Proposition on Gnomique Hand-Wringing would be a welcome addition to my collection, and since sitting on Santa's knee was such a special event, I decided to make my request in my best fluent Ruritanian country dialect: "Jip kronstumpf une codexoy don A Proposition on Gnomique Hand-Wringing vai Heinrick Schleist," I whispered in Santa's ear, hoping that he didn't know how naughty I had been when translating some of the bawdier Ruritanian folk poems earlier that year.
But he just gave me a funny look. "Eh?" he said, his jaw slackening by the second.
And it was at this precise moment, at the tender age of four, that my belief in Christmas magic was destroyed forever. Almost immediately I could see that the bearded imbecile had no idea what I was talking about. Not only could the festive fool not speak properly, he didn't even understand conversational Ruritania parlance; and last but not least, the Christmas cretin had obviously never heard of Heinrick Schleist either!
No wonder the idiot slides down chimneys, he probably doesn't know how doorknobs work.

Jacob Marley Gift Selection

Once again I am making available my fine collection of lovingly hand-published Christmas books for the first time. Ideal for both young and old and alive and dead. I am sure one of these handsome tomes will be a fine addition to that empty area beneath the Christmas tree. All of these beautiful volumes are bound in sumptuous, plague-free rat skin leather, and cost $19.99 excluding shipping and handling. Orders received by today will be dispatched in mid January. So brighten your family's Christmas morning by telling them that a couple of these delightful books will be delivered next year some time, subject to availability and applicable state fair-trading laws.

The Resentful Dog
A beautifully illustrated tale of a large bulldog called Rambo who awakens on Christmas morning to discover that his owners have forgotten to leave any presents for him beneath the tree. In retaliation he savages Auntie Agnes to death with his viciously razor-like jaws.

So, My Little Ones, You Never Thought You'd Hear From Uncle Herod Again
A charming pop-up book for children of all ages that follows the colorful adventures of maniacal monarch Uncle King Herod as he victimizes the local kids with a yet another seasonal bloodbath.

But Where Will The Fat People Live?
Evil Squire Scrawn has been narrowing cottage doorways in the village. Can Friar Plumpo crush him to death before it is too late? All will be revealed in this, the first installment of the justly celebrated "What About All The Fat People?" series of gripping adventure tales featuring overweight ecclesiastical sleuth Friar Plumpo and his heavenly sidekick, Saint Obesia.

Alyosius Shits By Candlelight
One for the children. A heartwarming tale in which little bow-legged Alyosius learns all about potty training from a farmyard goat that talks. Unfortunately, the goat must also tell Alyosius that he is dying from Goat Leukemia.

Jane Austen's Poorly Knee
While researching the life of the glamorous 18th century romantic poet Rupert Boore, busty Oxford professor Joanne de Crappe-Scollar unearths secret correspondence between Boore's mother and Jane Austen revealing that Jane Austen may have grazed her knee once while bending down to pick up a piece of needlework on a visit to Primly House in Somerset. A treat for all Jane Austen fans or anyone else who is a sucker for this sort of crap.

Briefly Noted

Until next Monday, the BBC's Book of the Week web page is streaming audio of the wonderful English actress Harriet Walter reading extracts from 'Twentieth Century Eye,' Jane Stevenson's  new biography of England's greatest painter, Edward "always join the minority" Burra. In honor of Burra's favorite method of communication, I wrote to Santa Claus, asking if he could bring me a copy of Stevenson's book when he arrives atop my chimney on Christmas Eve.

The painting above depicts one of Burra's favorite subjects: seedy bars. This particular example is the Golden Nugget in Boston's now demolished Combat Zone, where patrons would dance to jazz music and eye each other up, as they do in seedy bars the world over.

Seasons Greetings from D. H. Lawrence

The Christmas tree was fully erect now, and Lady Chatterly clasped the thick shaft in her left hand, sensing the sap rise from its stem and flow towards the top, astride which her fairy would later sit.
Once, long ago, she had believed in Santa Claus, even loved him, and had often dreamed of how the jolly gentleman would ease himself down her chimney in the middle of the night. Santa would appear in her bedroom, and she would fondle his huge sack, running her trembling hands over its contours, feeling for the thing she wanted most. Then he would give it to her. "Ho ho ho," he would bellow, and she would scream with delight. But that was before she had married Gerald, the humbug who had extinguished all her Yuletide passions.
From outside came the purr of a well-endowed engine driving up to the house. It was the meat man's truck bringing her Christmas goose. Lady Chatterly moved over to the window, parting her curtains and fingering the soft, pink material thoughtfully as a virile delivery boy walked up to the door with sinuous, animal movements.

See also: T. S. Eliot's "Twas The Wasteland Before Christmas"

Festive Fowl

Christmas is coming and my goose is getting extremely fat indeed. Some health experts have declared that he is technically obese, and I've even caught the little ducks call him "lard ass" and "foie gras butt" and other names that make fun of his enormous weight gain.
And perhaps they are right. He's almost as big as me now and I blame myself. I don't have the time to feed the goose proper wholemeal corn dinners when I get home from work, and so he is forced to subsist on a diet of cheeseburgers and chocolate. Also, he just slouches about in his pen all day, playing peck the nearest thing to his feet and crapping all over the floor, rather than exercising in the farmyard like a fit goose would do.
Frankly, it's got to the point now where I'm actually looking forward to slathering butter across his back and eating the lazy bastard. It will do him good to get a taste of his own medicine for once. That damn goose will never learn until his goose is well and truly cooked!

The Alchemist's Christmas

One Christmas morning, very many years ago, while savaging those gifts beneath the tree with my name on them, I ripped apart one particular parcel and discovered that it contained a collection of test tubes, multicolored vials, large cotton swabs, a pestle and mortar and other scientific equipment. The lurid writing on the box announced that this was "Let's Play Bio-Hazard," and there was even a picture of some wide-eyed Dr Jeckyl Jnr concocting a foaming elixir of purple poison. At least that's how I like to remember that particular Christmas morning, anyway. In fact, the gift in question was actually called "My First Chemistry Set," and, as events transpired, it would also turn out to be my last chemistry set.
As anyone who has ever owned a chemistry set is fully aware, the chemicals that are supplied with the set are of the most tedious and unexplosive kind. Consequently it becomes absolutely necessary to supplement your meager pharmacy with whatever you can siphon off from around the house: paint thinner; powdered milk; shampoo; bleach; adhesive solvents; and so on. A chemistry set box doesn't contain any fire, either, so you have to make that yourself as well. Suffice it to say, such home made experiments are no shortcut to the Philosopher's Stone, but they do ring in the New Year with a satisfying bang.

mY xMas iPod uPdated

In the spirit of Desert Island Discs, I present a list of my Lowly Cattle Shed Discs for the holiday season. In other words, if I were stuck in some miserable, dung-filled shack on Christmas Eve with a pregnant woman, these are the tunes I'd be listening to.

Traditional: I Saw Three Ships
I've always wondered about this song because, I mean, so you saw three ships come sailing by on Christmas day in the morning. Big deal. Who the hell cares. I saw a bowl of figs and a moldy tangerine on Christmas day in the morning but I don't go writing high-pitched songs about it, do I?

Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych: The Carol of the Bells
Quasimodo's least famous Christmas carol. Interesting tune, but for some reason it sounds to me like the background music for someone going insane.

Traditional: The Holly and Ivy
A great carol because despite the title and chorus the verses don't mention ivy at all. Not one word about the ivy! The actual lyrics are all about holly! Should have just been called "The Holly" if you ask me.

Peter Warlock: Bethlehem Down
Rather depressing tune to traditional words written by a suicide whose real name was Philip Heseltine. He was caricatured by Aldous Huxley in 'Antic Hay' and described in Anthony Powell's memoirs as "mephistolean". Bethlehem Down? Well, the song certainly doesn't bring you "up" that's for sure.

The Fall: No Xmas For John Quays
Over a cacaphonic background of poorly played instruments, Mark E. Smith delivers his seasonal harangue about a man in room with needle in his arm not receiving any Yuletide comfort or joy. Available on the CD called "Totale's Turns." There's another song called "Choc Stock" on the album, which, although it's not about Christmas, is about chocolate.

John Mason Neale: Good King Wenceslas
Mentions the "Feast of Stephen" which is obviously the best kind of feast you can celebrate. But otherwise has little to recommend it.

William Dix: What Child Is This?
It's Jesus, you fool. What child did you think it was for Christsakes!?!

In the spirit of Desert Island Discs, I present a list of my Lowly Cattle Shed Discs for the holiday season. In other words, if I were stuck in some miserable, dung-filled shack on Christmas Eve with a pregnant woman, these are the tunes I'd be listening to.

Traditional: I Saw Three Ships
I've always wondered about this song because, I mean, so you saw three ships come sailing by on Christmas day in the morning. Big deal. Who the hell cares. I saw a bowl of figs and a moldy tangerine on Christmas day in the morning but I don't go writing high-pitched songs about it, do I?

Mykola Dmytrovich Leontovych: The Carol of the Bells
Quasimodo's least famous Christmas carol. Interesting tune, but for some reason it sounds to me like the background music for someone going insane.

Traditional: The Holly and Ivy
A great carol because despite the title and chorus the verses don't mention ivy at all. Not one word about the ivy! The actual lyrics are all about holly! Should have just been called "The Holly" if you ask me.

Peter Warlock: Bethlehem Down
Rather depressing tune to traditional words written by a suicide whose real name was Philip Heseltine. He was caricatured by Aldous Huxley in 'Antic Hay' and described in Anthony Powell's memoirs as "mephistolean". Bethlehem Down? Well, the song certainly doesn't bring you "up" that's for sure.

The Fall: No Xmas For John Quays
Over a cacaphonic background of poorly played instruments, Mark E. Smith delivers his seasonal harangue about a man in room with needle in his arm not receiving any Yuletide comfort or joy. Available on the CD called "Totale's Turns." There's another song called "Choc Stock" on the album, which, although it's not about Christmas, is about chocolate.

John Mason Neale: Good King Wenceslas
Mentions the "Feast of Stephen" which is obviously the best kind of feast you can celebrate. But otherwise has little to recommend it.

William Dix: What Child Is This?
It's Jesus, you fool. What child did you think it was for Christsakes!?!

We Three Kings of Orient Express

In my rather irreligious household we forget all about the so-called "Baby Jesus" at Christmas, and we simply worship the Three Kings Bearing Gifts instead. We especially venerate the King who brings the gold because he is obviously the optimus maximus, the best and greatest of the three. The other two Kings, with their dubiously foreign spices, are merely semi-divine, somewhat lesser deities in our pantheon of Yuletide cheer. And finally, those miserable grubby shepherds who irresponsibly abandon the flocks they should be tending by night in order to follow some ridiculously over-sized star are, naturally, completely beneath contempt. Consequently, our decorative Nativity scene on the mantelpiece doesn't have many figures in it, since we don't much care for beggarly Mary and dreary Joseph either. To be honest, I should add that we've also disposed of that ugly stable with all the smelly animals in it, and we've replaced it with a sumptuously magical palace that looks much nicer. So, at the end of the day, I don't suppose you can really call it a decorative Nativity scene at all, really. In fact, it's more of a decorative decadent holiday binge scene, if you want to get pedantic about it. Not that anybody actually notices, obviously.

Sub Prime Tannenbaum

After we had finished decorating the Christmas tree (a real fixer-upper job), I stood back and said to the kids, "Kids, don't touch the wallpaper yet because it will wrinkle. The paint should take an hour or so to dry and then we can hang the granite counter tops, finish wiring and switch the water on."
The kids didn't seem so sure: "I think we've done the wrong kind of decoration," they said. "There's supposed to be tinsel and glittery ornaments and lights and stuff on the tree."
"There are lights." I said.
"Yes, but it's recessed track lighting and an anglepoise lamp," they explained. "We wanted a string of tiny white lights that twinkle on and off. That's what everybody else has on their tree. And stripy candy canes too."
"Well, I don't know," I said. "If you want candy canes on the tree then you're going to need more storage space, we've only installed seven cabinets and we need those to put the presents in."
"We don't need any cabinets or granite counter tops or whirlpool saunas on the tree." they cried. "The presents go under the tree and the candy canes hang off the branches."
"But that's just plain stupid," I said. "If you don't want to renovate and refurbish the tree, and are only going to throw things under it and hang impractical baubles on the branches, then why bring the tree inside the house in the first place. It doesn't make any sense. It's just going to make a big pine needle mess everywhere for no reason."
"But it's Christmas." they pleaded.
"Which doesn't give us carte blanche to behave like disorganized savages." I said. "Now give me a hand with these curtain rods. They should fit very nicely around the top of the tree and we can unfold the drapes down from there."

The Ghost of Stephenesque Past

This morning I received a Christmas card depicting the three Kings of Orient who, after riding their groaning camels across vast deserts following yonder star, have dismounted outside the lowly cattle shed and are delivering their gifts to the new born Prince of Peace: three bags full of gold, frankencense, and myrrh.
Now, perhaps I didn't pay as much attention to the Sunday school nativity story as I ought to have done, but I don't seem to recall what happened to all that gold.
I mean, if my wife is giving birth in a bloody stable, and someone presents me with enough gold to provide all the rappers in the world with all the gold teeth they could ever desire, well then, I don't know about you, but I'm taking a stroll back around to that Inn with no vacancies:
"No room at the Inn, eh?"
"Nope. No room at all. Fully booked. Sorry."
"Well, you know what, I've just bought the bloody Inn and so from now on there's no room for you either. You're fired. Get out."
I don't know. It seems to me that after the arrival of the three kings and their gifts, the holy family really needed a visit from the three wise financial advisers rather than having a bunch of shepherds stumbling through the door with absolutely no understanding of high yield investment strategies. If all that gold had been deposited in a really aggressive portfolio and Jesus could really have lived the high life to the max.
"Mr.Jesus. It's so very nice to see you here again, sir. Your usual table?"
"Naturally ... oh and Geoffrey, I'm expecting another guest for supper so you'd better bring a thirteenth chair."
"Certainly sir."
Just think, all those Catholics could be quaffing champagne at communion instead of sipping cheap red wine: "And this mountainous serving of cavier and patum peperium shall represent my body ..."
The possibilites could have been endless.

This morning I received a Christmas card depicting the three Kings of Orient who, after riding their groaning camels across vast deserts following yonder star, have dismounted outside the lowly cattle shed and are delivering their gifts to the new born Prince of Peace: three bags full of gold, frankencense, and myrrh.
Now, perhaps I didn't pay as much attention to the Sunday school nativity story as I ought to have done, but I don't seem to recall what happened to all that gold.
I mean, if my wife is giving birth in a bloody stable, and someone presents me with enough gold to provide all the rappers in the world with all the gold teeth they could ever desire, well then, I don't know about you, but I'm taking a stroll back around to that Inn with no vacancies:
"No room at the Inn, eh?"
"Nope. No room at all. Fully booked. Sorry."
"Well, you know what, I've just bought the bloody Inn and so from now on there's no room for you either. You're fired. Get out."
I don't know. It seems to me that after the arrival of the three kings and their gifts, the holy family really needed a visit from the three wise financial advisers rather than having a bunch of shepherds stumbling through the door with absolutely no understanding of high yield investment strategies. If all that gold had been deposited in a really aggressive portfolio and Jesus could really have lived the high life to the max.
"Mr.Jesus. It's so very nice to see you here again, sir. Your usual table?"
"Naturally ... oh and Geoffrey, I'm expecting another guest for supper so you'd better bring a thirteenth chair."
"Certainly sir."
Just think, all those Catholics could be quaffing champagne at communion instead of sipping cheap red wine: "And this mountainous serving of cavier and patum peperium shall represent my body ..."
The possibilites could have been endless.

Tree House Christmas

It has been a long standing Christmas tradition in my family to hang full-size gorilla costumes over our fireplace rather than the simple, customary stocking. The reason for such unconventional yuletide behavior stems from my great-grandfather's unsubstantiated claim that Santa Claus and Tarzan are in fact one and the same; a personality whom he referred to as "The Jolly Ape Man."
"Tarzan's famous jungle yodel," he would assert as he carved the Christmas goose in his tropical pith helmet, "Is merely an equatorial variation upon Santa's seasonal Ho ho ho, which he bellows as he swings through the snowy city streets on a system of telephone lines and electricity cables, dressed in nothing but a red loincloth with fur trim and matching hat, delivering his toys to only those children who don't behaved like a flatulent herd of wildebeests embarrassing themselves at a watering hole."
Suffice it to say, on Christmas morning my gorilla costume was usually empty.

Mysteriously Boring Britain, Part 89

The Monglesham Oblong is seven hundred miles wide and at least half-an-inch tall. It is over three thousand years old and made from petrified ognum ware. It was given its controversial name by Edward the Toilet Builder, who built a series of pilgrim's toilets along the oblong's route in the year 1372.
Some modern geometric authorities assert that the oblong is, in fact, merely a line, but this theory can not explain the intense feeling of rectangularity that many people experience after walking the entire length of the oblong, a distance that takes them far from their starting point at Monglesham Wick.
According to local legend, the oblong was originally coiled like a serpent but was straightened out by Saint Puny sometime during the second century. But when his unraveling task was completed the saint didn't know what to do next, so he just left the oblong lying there and buggered off to the Holy Land.
The Monglesham Oblong is open all year round, and there are lots and lots of public toilets nearby, so visitors won't get short.
For more information contact:

Mrs Elsie O' Drone (deceased)
2a Monglesham High Street
Monglesham Wick
Dullshire DU1 0DD
Olde Englande