Somewhere along the line, Christmas became the year's fattest festival. It lost its already tenuous association with the sacred and became a wham-bam, all-u-can-eat, deep-fill stufferama.

And for my own part, said my uncle Toby, though I should blush to boast of myself, Trim - yet had my name been Alexander, I could have done no more at Namur than my duty.

I came as soon as I could.

The man is an open book.