Yes, Virginia, Charles Dickens did invent Christmas, at least the Christmas spirit of giving to the poor as well as the presumption and posturing of the rich. As everyone knows, it was 1843 and Dickens had spent his hard-earned cash like an oil-rich camel driver. He was only 31, but he had a large family
My boy, and almost all the members of his family on his mother’s side, are dedicated smokers. Cigarettes are the joy and consolation of their lives. Whenever I go abroad, they take up a collection and I am handed a wad of money to buy and bring back as many tax-free fags as possible. When
Paying off your credit cards is an odd way to end the year. It just doesn’t feel very seasonal for a God-fearing Christian who ought to be marking the time of Our Lord’s birth by loading up their debts at Marks & Spencer in the traditional way. But I think I’m going to make it
Africa I found the former President of Sierra Leone sitting beneath a mango tree outside Freetown. Valentine Strasser wore ragged shorts and nothing else, not even shoes. Sweat streamed down his face like tears. He sipped palm wine from a dirty plastic mug and since it was still morning he was not yet very drunk.
It’s underrated, winter. I love it all the way to spring, but Christmas is absolutely my favourite time of the year. It was an utterly immaculate morning this morning: festive with the startling glamour of a snap frost, a brittle dawn. Pale clear skies screaming forever over a frozen landscape, the horizon a curtain of
It is the closest I have ever come to dying. It was 22 December 1995 and I had flown to Chicago from New York to spend the weekend with my friend Matias before returning to London for Christmas. The day started well: Matias was having a fancy-dress party and in the course of helping him
Without the hysteria-inducing presence of a World Cup, 2008 has been a year in which countless other major and minor sports have flourished. It has been a year of immense sporting achievement — thrills, excitements and real courage, with a series of ‘That Was the Best Ever…’ moments hurtling by, one after the other, like
Once again Mary has invited some of her favoured persons of distinction to submit Christmas queries. From Sir Tim Rice Q. I have recently employed a full-time driver. A friend (a well-known art dealer and social gadabout) has informed me and many of my close circle that it is considered common to sit in the
I moved to the country at Easter and have been planning Christmas ever since. Our house is groaning with home-cooked food, beautifully wrapped presents and table decorations that I’ve made with a hot glue gun. I love hot glue and want to glue everything to anything — apples, ribbons, small animals; nothing is safe. I
What new word has dominated 2008? Nonebrity, perhaps? No, I have never used it either. It is a portmanteau term for a ‘celebrity nonentity’ and is one suggestion for words of the year proposed by Susie Dent, who appears on Countdown, a programme that anyone claiming incapacity benefit is obliged to watch on pain of
