I may have a problem with mathoms (Tolkien)

...the museum at Michel Delving.  The Mathom-house it was called: for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom.  Their dwellings were rather apt to become  rather crowded with mathoms...

The Lord of the Rings, p18

Jacobs: read for fun

I say, "Go and read for fun," because that sense of reading as a duty is not going to carry you through. It's not going to sustain you as a vibrant reader, as you will be if you read what gives you delight. You may have actually lost some of that sense of delight over the years reading primarily for school. So go out there and have fun with it.
What will happen when people do that? Will they read frivolous things? Yes—at least I certainly hope so. I quote W. H. Auden, who says that the great masterpieces should be reserved for the "high holidays of the spirit." You're not designed for a steady diet of literary masterpieces any more than you would eat a seven-course French meal every day. At one point, Auden says it's not only permissible but admirable not always to be in the mood for Dante. And I think that's right. Sometimes you just want a lighter fare.

CT

Carson: preaching gospel Christology

Preaching from the Gospels is above all an exercise in the exposition and application of Christology.

Don Carson, The Gospel According to John (Pillar), p.102

Part 6 (the end)

Slowly he realised he was back in bed with the covers over his head.  He pushed them back.  Early sunshine was in the room and the sound of penguins passing the window, singing their breakfast song, filled the air.  Nick sat up and swung his legs round for the umpteenth time in the last few hours.

Remember, remember...you must remember.  Remember what you are for... Something was happening in his head, in some dark recess, in a locked attic deep in his mind someone or something had awoken and was banging on the door to get out.

For a second he stared into space,  and then he was up and over  to the window.  He called to a penguin who was loitering a short distance away singing his annoying song with accompanying choreography.

“Oi, you!”  The penguin continued dancing about.  Nick collected some of the snow off his windowsill, formed a compacted,  icy snowball and took aim.  It detonated with such force that the penguin flew head first in the drifts.

“Gosh,” said Nick, in a moment of revelation, “I’ve wanted to do that for years.”   The penguin picked itself up and looked about.  “Oi, you, penguin!  What day is this?”

“Eh?”

“What day’s today?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Eve,” it squeaked.  The penguin was experiencing a strange emotion: Nick had for centuries worn a permanently light-hearted and jolly expression.  And could generally be expected to be able to identify Christmas Eve.  He was unsure how to respond to the amnesia and the alien look of...determination?

“It’s Christmas Eve!  I haven’t missed it!  Right, get round to the stables and tell Rudolph to fire up the Team.”

“But it’s not night-time!  What about night-time? You’ll be seen, people will want to talk to you!  What about the presents?”  The  squeaks were filled with alarm.

“Load up the presents now.  And we’re going this morning while it’s light.  And get me the P.R. Elf.  Change of Policy.  We’re going public.  It’s time to talk.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

Quick Review: 1001 Books to Read Before you Die

I bought this one second hand earlier this year and read it progressively up to yesterday.  It's a great idea, especially for someone who will not live long enough to read all these books: stretching from 1000+years ago to 2006 (there are multiple editions of this volume I think), listing the must-reads, with a brief summary and lots of illustrations.

Having said that, it could also be called "1001 Books to Make you Miserable."  The small flaw in the book is that the reviews seem to be written by literary critics, 90% of whom are allergic to happiness and, in some cases, to an actual story.  I don't want to overdo this, because it has been a fascinating read.  But I get the impression that for many of these critics there is a set of criteria that a book should contain in order to be worthy.

You get a hint of this when they are covering books up to 1900: every so often you realise they are waiting for Ulysses and 20th century literature to start, and much of what went before is just hanging around til it happens.  Older books are more likely to be approved if they contain elements that come to fruition in the last 100years.  Key words are: psychologising, sexual, bourgeoisie, conflict.  Psycho-sexual bourgeoisie conflict is a definite winner.

Reaching Hardy, James and eventually Joyce, one feels we have obtained the promised land.  From thence on it would appear that the main purpose of literature is to challenge taboos and overturn the conventions of the linear narrative (ie frequent swearing, sexual content and violence + can't tell a story in a straight line = not many happy endings.)

Another double-edged sword is this volume's evolution from previous editions so as to include more non-Western books.  This opens up the horizons and made me realise just how many nations are publishing works which we generally never hear of.  The slight downside is that because they have been chosen by similar critics they are frequently taboo-breaking, non-linear blah-de-blah.  So one is provided with a global picture but left with the impression that basically everyone in every culture is, ironically, part of a mono-cultural approach to literature.

That's probably too bleak an appraisal, but needs to be borne in mind.  The great value of the book is the way it gives brief outlines of many books which one would not necessarily ever have considered or even heard of.  My Amazon list has definitely grown.

Part 5

He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment.  All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed.  Nothing else stirred in the darkness.

This time he did not try to sleep.  He stood and looked out of the window at the starlight reflecting on the ice, feeling very tired  and disturbed.  The people in the woods were bad enough, but this last dream had involved images of himself, like broken fragments, shards reflecting something...   It made him feel uncomfortable, but he was not sure why.  “This is Christmas,” he said to himself and the Citadel around him, “this is how Christmas looks.   What’s the matter with it?  Nothing, that’s what.  That’s how Christmas is. That’s how Christmas has always been.”  He wiped his brow.  “Isn’t it?”

The clock began to strike twelve.  Nick stopped breathing and waited....nine...ten...eleven...twelve.  The echoes faded leaving only a suggestion of disturbance in the air, and then that too was gone.  He was about to say “Well, come on let’s get it over with,” when the floor vanished.

 “Welllaaaaaaragghgggghhhhh!” he said instead, falling at considerable speed.  There was no light to illuminate his context, and only the rushing of air to let him know he was falling whilst pointing the right way up.

Thump!  He hit the floor, tumbled and landed in something which was dry and crumbling beneath his face and hands.  He did not feel hurt, but that didn’t seem an especially convincing reason to look up and face whatever awfulness lay before him.  So he didn’t and just lay there, taking in data with ears and nose: trees again, and these must be dry needles or small leaves, and a very slight breeze rustling in the boughs of something.  Oh goody, another wood.  

“Maybe I can just sleep here. Maybe it will go away.” Deep inside he knew this was a futile hope, not least because he was already, technically speaking, asleep.  There was a stirring nearby, not the wind but a something.   He looked up.  Okay, this one had obviously read the book.

It was night, but the moon shone brightly enough to lightly silver the dark hood and cloak of the tall figure.  Nick scrambled to his feet, no easy task when one has the proportions of a space-hopper.  He brushed from his beard and hair the dead leaves of the large yew trees which formed a circle around them.  “Right,” thought Nick,  “night-time, Yew trees in a circle, cloaked figure.   Feeling bad, feeling bad...try speaking.”

He cleared his throat. “Christmas future?”

The figure remained silent, and although his face – was there a face in there? – was obscured by shadow, it felt as though  he was staring at Nick.  Nick carried on regardless:  “You will show me shadows of things which have not yet happened, but will happen in the time to come, is that not so, Spirit?”  

It said nothing, but slowly raised its shrouded arm.  Nick’s eyes widened at this gesture, and took a step back from what he feared would be a skeletal hand.  Then noticed at the end of the sleeve was an ordinary hand.  It was holding  a torch, an electric torch.

“You’ll need this!” said a voice from within the hood, which the Guide swiftly pulled down.    “It’s dark!” he said cheerfully, by way of explanation,  “Parky, isn’t it?”

 Nick remained frozen, mouth open, waiting for normal transmission in his brain to resume.  Wasn’t this the bit with open graves and silent terror?  The Guide raised his eyebrows and then shook the torch in Nick’s direction in an encouraging manner. Nick took it  and closed his mouth.

“Long night for you!” said the Guide.  Was he a Cockney?   “Mind you I would have thought you’d be used to that, tearing off ‘round the world in one night.  ‘Ere, how come your reindeer don’t catch fire?”

Nick was staring at the torch as if he hadn’t seen one before and then stared at the man instead.  The head protruding from the dramatic cloak was, in its own way, also dramatic – plentiful black hair and a sharp black beard, with deep, olive  skin and angular features.  The Guide continued, with the chatter of one of life’s individuals who cannot bear a vacuum:

“You’re thinking ‘how can an imposing figure like him  talk like that?” aren’t you?

And why he doesn’t comb his hair, thought Nick.

“ ‘And why doesn’t he comb his hair?’ Well the thing is, I don’t normally look or sound like this. Technically speaking, I don’t look like anything.  I just thought I’d try it out for the night.  It’s been a while, you know.  So I thought: powerful Dickensian exterior, but underneath Merlin-esque imposing looks, with a hint of John the Baptist, plus barrow-boy nuances.  I don’t get to do this kind of thing often these days, so you gotta grab it while its going.  Four for the price of one.”

Nick was not sure whether to feel terrified or just slightly short-changed.  “Where am I?”

“Graveyard.”

He settled for terrified.

“Right, me old ducka,” continued the Guide.

“Mucca.”

“Mucca, that’s what I said. This way.”  He marched off between two of the yews. Nick trailed  behind.  On the other side of the trees was, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot more darkness.  Clouds had drifted across the moon and all he could see was the vague outlines of shapes, angular shapes.  Gravestones.  He felt depressed.  Jiggling was  now off the menu.  They walked for a few minutes and then the Guide stopped and said, “This’ll do!”

“For what?” Nick’s mouth was dry and he was desperately wishing he was somewhere else.  He did not deserve this.  He knew he didn’t.  He had brought immense pleasure to billions.  His life was about giving, not taking, about lights and smiles and music.  How could this be happening?

“Turn your torch on then.”

The torch became the weight of granite and the switch touch of poison. He didn’t want to switch it on. “If I turn it on, where should I point it?”

“Errr....over here, this one will do.”

Nick turned to the darker blackness of the headstone and pointed the torch.  He did not want to see or feel what was inscribed there.  As slow as death, he moved the switch and the light flicked on.  He stared in horror at the words before him.  The words took a moment to sink in, and then:  “Never heard of him.”

“No?” the Guide peered at the name on the grave, “Oh well.  Try this one.”

Nick swung the beam onto another stone. “Nor him.”

“You’re not very good at this are you, me old miner?”

“China.”

“China.”

“Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

“Course I have!  I’m what you might call a Professional Messenger.”  He drifted off in  the dark a little, “Here’s a likely looking one, I mean look at the size of it!”

Nick followed and played the torch over the impressive tomb.  It was four times the size of the other stones, towering above the two men, with ornate carving down either side, and the words were not carved but inlaid with what looked to Nick like titanium.  He swallowed hard and started to read.

“The whole earth mourns the loss of one we can never replace,” tears started to form in Nick’s eyes, “the strength and security he brought through generations was matched only by his endless generosity – oh that’s nice,” sobbed Nick, “very nice – and we rest our hearts in the knowledge that his sons – my sons!  They take over? It’s what I wanted! – will continue the great work and tradition.  To his detractors – ha! All those whiners about the T-MOC -  we say: you can’t prove anything!  He was nowhere near the betting shop the night Big Jimmy went down...”  Nick’s mental equipment was under a lot of strain, and the air was starting to feel very close and stuffy, but one thing was clear:

“ This isn’t my grave.”

“I never said it was.”

“Well which one is mine?”

“None of them.  You have a timeless existence, you won’t die. Not in the normal sense anyway.”

“Then why am I here?!  All this forbodingness and darkness and graves.  What’s it all about?  If my grave isn’t here, whose graves are they?”

“Everyone else’s.”

“Everyone else? Which particular everyone else? Like who?”

“Like...everyone else’s.”

Nick paused as a number of interpretations suggested themselves.  A particularly dark one was jumping up and down at the back of the queue, but he tried to ignore it.

“Yes, but when you say everyone, specifically who are we talking about.”

The Guide fixed his dark eyes on Nick’s.  “We’re talking about Everyone.  This is Christmas Future.  This is the Last Christmas.”

The air, which had been feeling uncomfortable and odd for a while, suddenly convulsed and a shattering concussion of lightning and thunder hurt Nick’s ears and eyes.  But the shock of sound was nothing compared to the shock of sight.  The percussive flash illuminated ranks of gravestones around him in every direction, for as far as he could see.  In the next flash he looked beyond to the walls of the cemetery: there were no walls, what he had taken for the boundary was yet more lines of graves proceeding far beyond the point where any sensible cemetery would have stopped.  Again the sky arced with electricity, and illuminated the retreating hills that climbed to the distant horizon.  The furthest hill, miles away, was not smoothed in outline by the distance, but serrated with a thousand tiny, angular,  full-stops.  Nick knew in his heart that every tiny point was a grave, and that every hill would be the same. The cemetery was gargantuan; it felt like it was the world.  The lightning ceased, the sound rumbled away and silence returned, a silence Nick now realised that had, until the storm, remained completely unbroken by anything except for himself, the Guide and the wind.

“Everyone?” asked Nick, weakly.

“Everyone.”

“But why bring me here, why show me myself alone in the world?  Did I cause this somehow?”

“No.  This is death at work, this is the curse of the Fall.  I remember it well.”

Something stirred in Nick’s memory, something from the story, the question to the third ghost.  “But is this what certainly will be, or only what might be?”

“Err....both.”  Nick’s slightly reviving hope went limp again.  What did that mean?

“So why bring me here?  What can I do about it? I can’t stop people from dying, I’m Father Christmas – I deliver toy trains and jiggle my belly.”

“But you are powerful. And you are fast. And everyone listens for you. And you won’t die. And, if you don’t mind me saying, you seem to have remembered the what and have forgotten the why.”

“But that won’t make people live forever!  That can’t overturn death.  I can’t bring eternity to a finite universe.  I’m not eternal – I may not die but I had a start, a beginning...sometime...it’s hazy now. But I do know that I’m limited.  I can’t open up a hole into forever and let it flow into the world.  Who can do that?”

“If there’s one thing tonight should do, it’s highlight your memory issues.”

“If someone could do that,” Nick carried on regardless, becoming more agitated, “then they would have done it long ago.”

“Someone can, and someone did.  Think, Nick!  Think!”

There was light from above again, but not from a storm this time.  The sky was clearing, and as the stars appeared once more over the silent world, one star shone more brightly, so brightly that the edges of the graves shone, and he could see the Guide’s features once more. His eyes reflected the light of the great star, at which he gazed with beautiful smile.  “Well, I haven’t seen you in a long time...”

Nick gazed at it too.  “There’s something about it, something long ago...”

“Come on Nick!  Strike a light and push your granny down the stairs, mush!”

“What?!”

“Nick, what are you for?”

“What am I for?”  The star was bothering him. Its light seemed to be inside his eyes, though he was looking at the Guide.  “I...don’t remember...what I’m for...”

“Oh Nick, look, think.”

Nick turned back to look at the star, and in that moment there was a great rustle by his side, and when he looked back to the Guide the cloak was just completing its empty journey to the ground.   In his confusion Nick was aware only of a movement, of a great wing gently brushing his face as it moved upwards. Nick span, but saw nothing, and then looking upwards there was for a moment a lesser light in the sky, approaching the bright star.  It entered the halo of light around the greater brightness, and was gone.  And then the star was gone too. All was darkness.

Dalrymple: thoughts on sexual morality

...this is the first time in history there has been mass denial that sexual relations are a proper subject of moral reflection or need to be governed by moral restrictions...

...how many time I have heard from my patients of their aching desire to settle down and live in a normal family, and yet have no idea whatever how to achieve this goal that was once within reach of almost everyone!


...Thanks to the sexual revolution, current confusions are manifold.  In a society that forms sexual liaisons with scarcely a thought, a passing suggestive remark can result in a lawsuit; the use of explicit sexual language is de riguer in literary circles, but medical journals fear to print the word "prostitute" and use the delicate euphemism "sex worker" instead...anxiety about the sexual abuse of children subsists with an utter indifference to the age of consent; compulsory sex education and free contraception have proved not incompatible with the termination of a third of all pregnancies in Britain and with unprecedented numbers of teenage pregnancies...Sexual liberty has led to an increase, not a diminution, in violence between the sexes, both by men and by women: for people rarely grant the object of their affection the freedom they claim and practise for themselves, with a consequent rise in mistrust and jealousy...The only permissible judgment in polite society is that no judgment is permissible.

Our Culture... p236-240

Part 4

It was his room and it now had a ceiling across which reflections chased.  He lay back down, watching his huge belly push the blankets up and down with each  breath.  Gradually his breathing slowed, which is more than could be said for his tumbling thoughts.   The time before.  That was something he had not thought much about in an age.  In fact he did not think about it at all, not on purpose.  Sometimes it was there, at the edge of his mind, but he pushed it away before it could take hold and interfere with memories and uncomfortable questions.  After all, what did it have to do with the way things are now?  

As he thought this, he felt its presence far too close, like a howling dark vacuum beyond the edge of his life, from which he had been moving away for as long as he could remember.  He was vaguely aware that somehow, sometime, he had mentally reset the Beginning to much later than it really had been.  But he’d had to, hadn’t he?  And things worked so well now: why go back and start fiddling with things?  As he pushed the disturbance away, he was  gratified to see the mound before him rising and falling more gently, more slowly, as his vital signs returned to normal.  Just in time for the clock to start striking twelve again...

His eyes snapped to the ceiling but the ceiling stayed exactly where it was.  He waited.  On the periphery of his hearing there was a sound: voices, distant, tinny, jumbling together, and lots of them.  Like a crowd of people stuck in a huge bucket at the bottom of a well.  But getting louder, nearer.  He sat up and looked around.  The sound seemed to be coming from the walk-in cupboard opposite the end of his bed, which had so recently been a forest floor.  At this moment it was reassuringly a vertical cupboard.

 He heaved himself out of bed again, took his coat from where it had replaced itself on the bedpost (no blood stains), in case there was more snow involved, and walked to the doors.  For a moment he leaned close and listened to the sounds from within; definitely voices, lots of people, echoing round.  Grasping the handles, he took a deep breath and swung the doors open.  Trees again.  In the cupboard.  And smoke, emerging in puffs from somewhere towards the back.  He touched the trees.

“ Plastic?  Plastic...Christmas trees, in my cupboard?” he asked  himself.

“This way!”  A man’s voice, definitely British of some sort this time.   It came from further in, roughly from where more puffs of smoke were emerging.  There was only one way to get this over with, so Nick pushed through the scratchy trees, following the ascending clouds which, as he walked through their remains, he recognised  as pipe-smoke.  There was light ahead and then he finally stepped out from the fringe of the ‘woods’.

It was a shopping centre, a big one.  The floor was polished honey-coloured stone tile, the ceiling arched above them to a glass roof dimly showing the onset of a dusky winter’s evening.  Some way ahead was a balcony overlooking the floors below, and receding into the distance down either side of this floor were the flattened conformity of commercial units. A large number of people wandered through the brightly lit hall, entering and leaving shops, brushing past vast and gaudy decorations, savouring the tinny music and responding with the tinny echoes of their myriad voices.  Over the sound-system, tinny Greg Lake sang that he believed in Father Christmas, with tinny cynicism.

“The present, I assume,” said Nick, having taken all this in.

“Oh yes”, said the voice,  “welcome to Christmas present.”  The tone of his voice suggested “and you can keep it,” with a hint of satisfaction, as though the mere sight of the Mall was the final point in a conclusive argument.

Nick turned back to see who his Guide was.  Standing against the rows of Christmas trees ranged before “Discount Christmas”, was someone who did not look much like he should be in Christmas Present at all. More like Christmas-Austerity-After-the-War.  He was dressed in a well-worn tweed jacket and unremarkable, formal trousers that had seen better days, with what looked like stout walking boots of the old kind, protruding from the bottoms.   A chunky tie bound the broad wings of his shirt collar.  All of this combined with his thinning hair and ruddy cheeks, made him look like a farmer out for a Sunday walk, and he certainly seemed out of place here.  He replaced the pipe for a moment and smoke swirled about his face, his twinkling, lively eyes shining through. Nick continued nervously,

“Right.  No sheep...or anything?”

“No, no, no.  No, Christmas here is nice and clean.  Clad in synthetic marble, treated with antiseptic, climate controlled, lights beautifully sequenced.  No.  You would never find blood or lambs here.”

“You sound disappointed. I can tell you it’s no bad thing after what I just saw.”

“No...”, said the Guide, the word laden with meaning though Nick was not sure of what.

They wandered towards the balcony, people weaving around them, even though they had no idea there were two extra figures crossing the walkway.

“Yes, no bad thing,” the Guide continued, “but do you ever think, especially with your many years of observing humanity, that people tend to swing the pendulum from one extreme to another?  Never seem to settle somewhere in the middle.”

“The pendulum can swing as far as it likes from killing cute farm animals in a wood, as far as I’m concerned.”

“A fair point.  But is this real?  Doesn’t it feel like a dose of ether?  Like one big anaesthetic?  To keep you from feeling...something?”

“Yes.  The wrong end of a big pointy knife somewhere painful.”

 They reached the balcony and leaned on the rail, the Guide replacing the pipe and puffing thoughtfully.  Presumably smoking was banned in here, but who would know?   

“And all that running about,” continued Nick, “trying to find something to keep back the darkness – that’s all gone.”

They watched the chaotic rush below:  the multicoloured frenzy of hundreds, possibly thousands,  of people heaving through the walkways; people clutching lists, tensely ticking off successes and underlining lamented failures; the hollow looks of disappointment because the last available one was sold an hour ago; the joyous pride and warmth of heart registering on the faces of those making their way to the car-park, arms overflowing with victory; the occasional elderly person, sat on one of the few, begrudgingly provided benches, watching sadly, alone, only here because it was warm and not their empty home where they knew, eventually, they must return.  Every one of the thronging mass desperate for that one bright thing to carry out into the darkness of the winter night.

“Maybe,” said the Guide and continued to puff, illegally.

“Oh look!” Nick’s heart warmed instantly. “It’s me!  I love it when they do that.”

The balcony formed a large oval, and framed the scene below where the Mall owners had sacrificed some shop-space to erect a large Christmas scene.  Plastic snow banks led up to Santa’s igloo. A large mechanical Polar Bear, swung its head back and forth, and here and there a penguin wearing a woolly hat moved its beak so as to sing a tinny rendition of “Winter Wonderland”.

“Gosh,” said the Guide bleakly, “singing penguins.”

“Yes...it can get annoying after a few years of that outside your window.  At least you can switch these off.  But look, you can’t beat that!”

The top of the igloo was missing so that watchers from above could see what the gaggles of queuing children could not:  Santa, in his igloo-grotto, sat upon his throne, smiling benignly at the child on-a-stool-not-on-Santa’s-knee-because-this-Complex-has-a-child-protection-policy.

“You can’t get much better than that!” sighed Nick.

“It doesn’t bother you that he’s pretending to be you?”

“No!  Goodness no!” and he gave a little jiggle to show how jolly he felt about it. “No, I’m only available one night a year while the kids are all unconscious.  This is a way for them to experience just a little of the uniqueness of the T-MOC.”

“Ah. And what would that be precisely?”

“Well, they meet their favourite person in the world, and receive a wonderful gift, and go away with joy in their hearts.”

“Yes, I suppose they do.  Except, it isn’t really you.  And the gift isn’t a gift,”  he pointed the stem of his pipe towards the ice-encrusted sign stuck jauntily in one of the snow banks.  It read Only £7.50. “And we both know they will have forgotten what the present is by the time they reach the window of Toys-R-Us.”

Nick turned in annoyance to the Guide, who remained passively observing the conveyor belt of children being helped, by elves, in at the front and out at the back of the Grotto.  Nick was used to this kind of fanatical criticism, but it had been a long night and on this night especially, he expected better treatment.

“Look, nothing is perfect in this world.  Why deny these kids a few minutes of happiness, a few minutes with someone who is like me, carrying me in his heart, bearing The T-MOC to these kids. It’ll wear off, I know that.  I’m not naive.  But out there is darkness and a real world they have to grow up in which is going to be hard, so they need something...more than life, ordinary life, offers them.”

“But that is precisely my point.  Do you not think they need something more?  And you are, if you will forgive me for saying so, a supernatural entity, someone who can be everywhere in a night, who has access to power of which mortals only dream.  Do you not think you could do something more than permit these children to settle for a fleeting moment of happiness? Something more for this world of tears?”

“No!  That’s not me!  I get out once a year, shed some happiness, and go home again.  It’s what I’m for.  Not global transformation.”

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking global, not initially anyway.  I was thinking more, one heart at a time.”

“I warm hearts for a few hours, I don’t change them.”

“No, but a man of your considerable ability, do you not think you could use your influence to point them somewhere they can?  Wouldn’t that be more significant than  two minutes in a plastic igloo with a fellow in a stick-on beard who’s desperate for the day to end so he can go home?”

“It’s Christmas Eve!  Why even say things like that!”

“Actually, it’s not Christmas Eve.  This is three weeks ago – there’s another twenty one days of this uniqueness, here under the constellations of  LEDs.  Three more weeks of fruitless searching for something.”

“What is your problem?!  So what if the uniqueness stretches into November, or October?”

“Ah, always Christmas but never winter.”

“And what’s wrong with a bloke in a stick-on beard bringing this uniqueness?”

“Nothing at all.  You misunderstand me if you think I’m against all of this.  I’m just suggesting that it may need something more.  And it all depends on what you mean by unique.”  He pointed again with his pipe to a shop front on their floor, just a few yards to their left.   A hastily written sign proclaimed He’s Here!  There in the window itself, surrounded by polystyrene snow, was another Santa.

It produced a slightly odd sensation to see two of himself at close quarters but Nick did not regard this as a big issue, not really. “He’s just helping to spread it a little more.”

“As is he,” the pipe waved in the opposite direction.  Another Santa had pushed a handcart of toys before another large store.  He fiddled somewhere in cart’s depths and started a tinny recording of ‘Winter Wonderland’.

In the lane snow is glistening sang Frank. A veil of tears for the virgin birth, sang Greg, whose turn on the loop-track had come round again

“And that one,” the Guide waved another trail of smoke. A major department store, whose first floor emerged a little way further down, had now positioned elves at the door that were pretending to play plastic trumpets as Santa emerged triumphantly from within.  His beard was somewhat better than the man with the handcart, who turned his music up in the hope no one would notice.

Later on we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire , sang Frank.  “‘Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn, and I saw him and through his disguise,” intoned Greg.

Nick was starting to feel dizzy and the competing noises of canned music and kids shouting, and the startling increase in clones of himself was making his legs feel weak.  And then a voice cut through:

“Oi!! I don’t recognise you!  You’re not licensed!”  Another Santa had emerged from  ‘Discount Christmas’ behind him.  He looked very much like a Discount Santa and had the attitude to go with it.  In the process of shouting he had also attracted the attention of the other Santas who were now making their ways toward him.

“They can see me!” cried Nick.  He turned in desperation to the Guide, but he had vanished and nothing remained of him except one small puff of smoke that drifted slowly up towards the glass-encased night sky.  A hand came down heavily on his shoulder – Discount Santa had reached him, and the others soon arrived.  A new jumble of angry not very-jolly voices joined the Mall.
“You’re not approved...where’s your licence?  Come here, on our patches...”  

A small crowd gathered to view proceedings, unaware that they were watching the Genuine Article being attacked by doppelgangers.  It made a nice change from watching competing parents punching each other outside the toy-shop.

The militant Santas swarmed around Nick and all he could see was red cloth and white fur swirling before him, their voices jumbling with Greg’s, The Christmas you get you deserve.  They were on top of him and he could feel himself falling as he struggled against the crimson tide and then finally succeeded in throwing off his blankets onto the bedroom floor.

He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment.  All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed.  Nothing else stirred in the darkness.