“We’d better make this a short session, Lads, because I’m supposed to be at home drinking with my other mates, Parky Puss, Magic Psycho Cat, Boots the Marmalade Murderer, Mammy Sal, Bibby Special Needs and Pixel the Thug. I’ve laid in the supplies, and they’ll be drinking double cream, and I, being an inferior sort of a cat, single malt. Highland Park if you must know, Frank. I’ve only managed to sneak out because Elle is out risking her life, if not her entrails. She’s on night duty at the nursing home down the road, and Norwalk, also known as Novo virus is doing the rounds. If I were you, Lads, I’d play it safe and finish with a whisky tonight and walk home on the other side of the road.

“Death is in the air and eight staff are off with it. A dozen or so have already died down south, but that’s southerners for you. Talcum knackered jessies all, no stamina. That’s why I need the malt, purely as an antiseptic to protect me from her return in the morning you understand because nurses carry everything. It’s all right for them because they’ve become immune to most bugs over the years. Gladys, fetch another round will you, Love? Alf’s paying.

“Will you listen to that racket? What do I mean? What do I bloody mean? The ice cream van, Stan. I can’t for the life of me understand how you can switch it off. Where I grew there was no such thing. The first one I can recall hearing was not long after I met Elle. I’d have been in my late twenties, and I asked her what the awful noise was. It’s a tasteless, mindlessly repetitive racket, three grades of quality below musak and what the kids refer to as elevator music.

“Which brings us nicely back to what you were going on about, George: Christmas. I loath it, and I can give Bah humbuggers lessons in Bah humbugging. I loath everything about it. Most especially I loath that it seems to start at Easter. It’s true. You can tell when it’s Christmas by the Easter eggs in the shops, and as for that awful music that you can’t escape from and nobody wants to listen too, the perpetrators of that should be dragged out and stoned in the street.

Bet you didn’t know I have some thing in common with Johanna Lumley did you. Keep it clean or keep it quiet, George! There are kids and women in the best room next door. Gladys, if George makes any more dirty remarks, hit him for me will you, Love, you’re nearer than me. Johanna and I are both members of the noise abatement society, and neither of us shop in any establishment that plays music. They’ll only get my money on my terms. I don’t need any one’s permission to spend it because it’ll spend anywhere.

I hated Christmas as a child because my sisters were given things. The old man didn’t believe in boys being spoilt, so I was given nothing, and usually went for a walk – all day. Even the prospect of Christmas dinner didn’t attract me enough to put up with all that hugging and kissing from people I only saw once a year who really didn’t give a damn which nauseated me. I still don’t like people touching me.

I have never bought a Christmas card or a present for anyone, nothing but a money making racket to extort money out of folk with more money than sense. Only all too many of them don’t actually have any money. They spend a fortune they don’t have buying stuff they don’t need, and half of what they buy the kid’s is broken before the new year. The pawnbrokers’ best month is January because the fools haven’t got enough to eat so they hock everything other fools gave them.

“At least I’ve got enough money to give Elle my credit card at the beginning of December, and tell her to get on with it. She knows she can do what she wants with it as long as she doesn’t burden me with explanations I don’t want to hear, and that she knows I won’t listen to anyway. What do mean Jeff, I’m taking a chance? Elle’s tighter than a bull’s backside at fly time. Years ago she had her own credit card, but she never used it. Not once. We reckoned it was just a liability, so she cut it up, told the bank not to replace it and has used mine ever since. I can count the number of times she’s used it in thirty or more years on the fingers of one hand. I get funny looks from the postman when he delivers lingerie catalogues addressed to me, but doubtless perplexity is good for his soul.

“I don’t want for anything, if I want something I just buy it whatever time of the year it is, Elle does too. Don’t be daft, Alf. I don’t want a yacht. I can’t swim. The best Christmas days that I can remember were when Elle was working, she’s working this year too. I drank single malt all day, and the cats as usual drank double cream.

“I hate turkey, it’s drier than an undertaker’s eyes at a funeral. Elle hates it too, that’s the real reason why she married me, so we eat steak, usually elk that I have sent to me by my cousin from Karelia. Heaven forfend that I should eat reindeer at Christmas. I’d be accused of Bambicide. Don’t talk nonsense, Alf, the meat import restrictions only apply to people, so just in case I have it addressed to Bootsie, the Marmalade Murderer, my wee red cat. He gets blamed for everything anyway.

“I like steak blue, so I introduce mine to the candle. What’s that Alf? You’re full of questions tonight. You ailing for something? Of course I light it! ‘Candle I’d like you to meet steak, steak I’d like you to meet candle.’ I do this twice so that my steak is cooked on both sides. The cats aren’t fussed about candles for their steak.

“When it’s time for pudding we all have what the kids refer to as squashed dead fly cake, which is Christmas pudding to you heathens, with more double cream. The cats always leave the pudding. Still I reckon they should have the option. Brilliant really, by the time Elle gets back from having enjoyed Christmas day with the residents, and all that secret Santa nonsense is over, we, cats and I, are all crashed out feeling fat having had a perfect day doing absolutely nothing.

“No TV in our house to intrude upon our delicate nerves. We, that’s Elle, cats and I, have a perfect family life, Elle and I get on just fine, each respectful of the other’s views. There’s nothing of any interest to say about Christmas. I reckon my tool merchant, Jonny Cash, name changed to protect the guilty, has the right idea. He’s a dib-dib-dobber, you’d call him a Jehova’s Witnesses, Stan, and they don’t do Christmas either. He usually digs his allotment over.

“Hogmanay? Now that’s a whole different story. I’ll finish this one and then I’ve got to go, Lads. Like I said, Elle’s working, so the cats’ll be waiting for someone to put more logs on the fire and open the cream, and there’s a bottle of Highland Park calling me.