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.

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.

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.

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