• they create landfill and extra pollution is caused moving millions of them around
• I’m a Christmas-hating bah-humbugger irreligious pinko
• it’s a waste of money, which is criminal when so many people have so little.

What I do instead is choose a charidee that means something to me and give it the cash that I used to spend on cards and postage. This year, it’s the Angkor Hospital for Children in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

When I was in Siem Reap earlier this year, there was an outbreak of Dengue hemorrhagic fever which killed many kids, and the hospital was calling for donations of blood and money. My multiple sclerosis prevents me from donating blood, so I’m donating money instead. (Also, I’m marginally less scared of opening my wallet than I am of massive needles.)

The director of the hospital, David Shoemaker, says that his most memorable experience working there is

seeing a kid die in the ER one evening because his parents had spent all day trying to borrow $1 to pay for transportation to get to the hospital.

So that’s your Xmas card—I hope you like it and whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope that 2008 is happy and prosperous for you and yours.

This year, I’m giving the dosh I spend on cards to Amnesty International. When I was a lad, and a lot more politically active, I did quite a lot with Amnesty, but rather got tired of their mission-creep into protesting against the death penalty and for abortion rights.

But these days, when there’s a Shhh-don’t-use-the-word-”genocide ” in Darfur, detention without trial in the USA, organ-harvesting in China, and Mr Putin feeding nuclear sushi to critics, it seems Amnesty is needed more than ever.

So, please accept my apologies for not sending you a card – and please don’t send me one, but send a quid to Amnesty on my behalf. Or just have a beer and think nice things.

Designers still wanted

The client hired designers who don’t understand Web. I can see the horrors, but can’t do better designs. If you can design, it’s not too late to send some samples to pitch for a couple of days work.

Friday joke

Let’s have Christmas jokes throughout December!

It’s late at night, and Good King Wenceslas has had a hard evening doing good and helping people. Being too tired to cook, he goes to his favourite pizza restaurant.

“Young man”, he says to the waiter who shows him to his Royal table and takes his order, “I’ll have my usual pizza. And fast, please.?”

The waiter runs into the kitchen, frantic with worry. “I’m new,” he stutters to the cook, “so I’ve got no idea what His Majesty’s ‘usual’ is!”.

“Good King Wenceslas? He always has it deep pan, crisp and even.”

Confusingly, from an atheist who would rather get testicular leprosy than religion, the least offensive Christmas music that can be broadcast at you when you’re walking around the supermarket is traditional Christmas carols sung by proper choirs. This is relatively easy to blank out, being tuneful, quite gentle and thus eminently ignorable.

No, the xmas music that really raises my blood pressure the modern popular xmas genre. For one, it’s fabulously cynical; we can assume that the writers of Victorian carols at least believed what they were writing and genuinely wished goodwill to all mankind (except the females, colonials and workers, of course), but I can’t believe that Bruce Springsteen *really* felt much when he made his repulsive cover of "Santa Claus is coming to town".

Secondly, pop xmas stuff is too damn loud. I read somewhere that Slade’s contribution to this sorry genre was recorded during the summer. Noddy Holder’s fade out "IT’S CHRISTMAS" squawk is a fantastic impersonation of a pissed-up overly-sentimental Brummie on Xmas eve (and trust me, I’ve absolutely nothing against pissed-up Brummies), but it is an aural assault when tannoyed at me while I’m trying to get parsnips for Sunday lunch.

The very very worst example of the modern Xmas song is Lennon’s "Merry Xmas (War is Over)". This is a crime against humanity for several reasons:

• War isn’t over, is it? The twat. You can imagine the people in Iraq or Palestine slapping their foreheads and saying, "Why didn’t we realise. War is over, if we want it. Doh!". So the fact that they’re being bombed, murdered and starved is entirely their own fault, as they insufficiently wish for peace. Thanks for the lesson in geopolitics, Mr Lennon.
• The sound of a multi-millionaire pop singer asking the listener "So this is Xmas/ and what have you done?"  is pretty galling when all he‘d done to fight warfare and oppression was get pissed with his mates and sit in bed with his wife. And send some fucking acorns to politicians. Not a Gandhi salt march, is it John?
• It’s a horrible tune and Yoko’s glass-shattering "harmonies" at the chorus had me cowering behind the display of Xmas puddings in Tescos, genuinely fearing being cut to ribbons by shards of glass if the shopfront gave way during a high note.
• The lyrics are doggerel. "So this is Xmas/ and what have you done?/ Another year over/ and a new one just begun". Childish rhymes, bad scansion.

The woman who sold me my cheese at the deli counter told me she was dreading next Saturday when "They turn on the Xmas music". I’m not surprised: when the U.S. played horrid music to Iraqi prisoners to break their will, Amnesty International were seriously concerned. They should visit Birmingham supermarkets. With earplugs.

(This post was written for the grumpy old people blog.)