Stop sending Christmas cards! 

Christmas cards are the pits, aren’t they? A positive engine of seasonal ill-will. They take hours to do, if you do them properly, and wing across the country (and have you checked the price of a stamp lately?) to be received by people you like but don’t see, or people you see but don’t like – and to find themselves consigned to the recycling bin, in many cases, within thirty seconds of being opened. You feel guilty when you get a card from people you failed to send one to; and resentful when you don’t get a card from people you remembered to send one to.

It strikes me, though, that we civilians have it positively easy on the Christmas card front. Imagine what it must be like being a member of the royal family. It’s enough to cause pity to well in the heart of even the most fervent of republicans. If you’re the King or the Prince of Wales, you have to send hundreds and hundreds of the wretched things.