For Christmas we had bought a smallish box from Hotel Chocolate to share between us. We devised a system. First, a diagram of the display seen from above was drawn. Then each chocolate was given a number. Roman numerals were chosen. There were eighteen chocolates. These were listed. Then one after another we chose our preferences, nine each. A letter was then added to the name of each chocolate on our list. Two of the chocolate selections contained two small chocolate items. That was easy; one each. But it required a different classification letter; U for universal. There only remained to choose a colour each, to colour-code the chocolates on the diagram; brown and pink. The business was done. Now we can eat them without guilt or the temptations of deceit.

See how easy Christmas can be.

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Christmas Poem 2024. In English and in French. Happy Feasts.

A massive shadow shifts behind the line of the horizon.

It is the head of Santa approaching from the North.

It climbs over the hills and peaks. It is now amongst us.

Like during the annexation of Austria. Infiltrating

Into our world. With its jollity, its Christmas songs,

Its frantic desire to sell us more stuff.

But be comforted. This annexation

Will only last a couple of weeks.

Soon the invasion will disperse, the forces will retreat

And sweet normality will resume.

Une ombre massive se profile sur l’horizon.

C’est la tête du Père Noel qui s’approche du Nord.

Il grimpe les collines, les sommets. Il est parmi nous à présent.

On dirait l’annexion de l’Autriche. Il s’infiltre

Dans notre monde. Avec ses chansons saisonnières, son fun,

Son désir frénétique de nous vendre plus de trucs.

Soyez rassuré. Cette annexion

Ne durera qu’une quinzaine.

Bientôt l’invasion se dispersera. L’ennemi se retirera

Et la douce normalité  reprendra son règne.

http://www.peoplearerubbish.com

In my movements from home to one place of work to another place of work to home I maintain a strict and instinctive adherence to the regularities of the clock. I leave home at 8.30 every morning. I am not looking at the clock. I just sense it. Like I sense that the alarm will ring at 7.30 and so wake up automatically at 7.29. I am like that, embedded in time. This means that I tend to come across other people who also obey the demands of the clock: children going to school; adults going to work. There is a particular pair of mother and child that I unfailingly pass on the curve of the Oval at about 8.34 every morning. This has been going on for a couple of years now. I know them well and they, or at least the mother, know me well, though we have never spoken, nor even exchanged other than a furtive glance. Certainly never acknowledged the other’s presence. But the periodicity of our superficial encounters has produced a strange, magical relationship. Magical in that it has sprung up from no active behaviour on our part. It is, I suppose, the same kind of almost erotic frisson that occurs when two people are stuck in a lift together. The imposed intimacy can often sent up a highly charged bond between the two, the sense of having experienced a moment that fate has ordained. I wonder if I will ever acknowledge that mother and child. If, in some future moment we are ever obliged to confront each other, to say hallo or good morning in a village fete or a town hall community meeting to discuss the saving of the local post office, it would be as if we are picking up a historical relationship with all its melancholy and regret.

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