Get thee behind me, Santa. Curious news from Germany, where a group has launched a campaign to persuade people to turn their backs on Santa Claus and return to St Nicholas instead.

I have prayed for strength for such a duty, and find it come off as weakly and dead-heartedly as before.

Possibly Beauty Smith, arch-fiend and tormentor, was capable of breaking White Fang’s spirit, but as yet there were not signs of his succeeding.

Another of our friends once walked into the communal showers to find a boy tootling on the pink oboe of another of the same age.