Right, I've just got back from Germany so I have a huge backlog of stuff to get sorted — the inevitable result of a short break away hissing around the Allgäu, past numberless gasping locals, all swooning, 'Incredible! He skis like some kind of god!' You'll be happy to know, however, that Christmas this year went very well. As I think we've established by now, providing Margret with Christmas presents that evoke joy — rather than massive, brutal retaliation — is something that must be bought at a terrible cost. The fearful, Faust-blanching price of this ability is to — quite literally — listen to everything that Margret says throughout the previous year. I mean, Kung Fu monks (according to the omniscient well of knowledge that is popular 1970s television) only had to do a decade or so of training then carry a red hot metal bowl for a couple of meters with their bare forearms. I have to listen to everything Margret says throughout the entire year. Endless, endless, endless hours of stuff about the comparative aesthetic merits of different Ikea storage units, just so I'm there — prickling with alertness — on those occasions when she slyly drops in a hint about what she might like as a gift when the trial of buying one for her confronts me again. As I say, though, last year, twelve months worth of intelligence gathering paid off. This Christmas morning she was so thrilled that she stared at me — literally unable to form her thoughts into words — for quite the longest time imaginable after unwrapping her presents of a barometer and one of those 'Make Your Own Will' kits.