Fiendish Games

Christmas is nearly upon us and after being pretty good for 6 months or so in terms of not eating anything with too high a fat content I have, in the space of 5 days, wallowed in a cholesterol festival of junk snack food.

It's all very decent of the boss to buy every department £50 worth of pork pies, scotch eggs, cheese twists, crisps, wafer thin mints, mince pies, all butter shortbread, honey coated peanuts and, for the health fanatics among us, tangerines, but did she have to put our department's selection on the desk right next to mine?

Somebody from another team came over and said, "You've been sitting here watching all the gannets come over, who has been the greediest?".

It's me! Me, me, me, me, me. Burp.

Luckily, at home, Lin has not felt in a Christmassy mood. Or, as she put it, I don't fancy putting up all the decorations, cooking all the food, setting up the dining tables for the extended family, all for zero appreciation.

I think this is what is called a pointed comment.

So, at least at home, I have not had to resist the temptations of toffees, nuts and mince pies because Christmas hasn't started yet. We've got booze in the house but that's because the in-laws are down and having a fully stocked beer selection is one of the perks for my father-in-law for driving down to see us. Basically, his wife cleans our house from top to bottom, does all the ironing and cleaning up after our house-wrecking three sons, and he drinks the beer....

.... which is a totally unfair description of his contribution, to be fair. He does the cooking, washing up and general ferrying me about by car to pick up things that are too heavy for me to carry on the bus.

Another reason for Lin not feeling very Christmassy is the complete absence of community spirit among the male element of the Harrington household. Lin and I are both off work between Christmas and the New Year and she had this romantic notion that we'd spend time together as a family, going ice skating, seeing plays, visiting foreign cities, and it's clearly not going to happen.

Number one son is going to be spending all his time with his mates or holing up in his bedroom playing Linkin Park at ear-bleeding volume. When he's not doing that he'll be playing World of Warcraft or Halo II.

Number two son is going to be spending all his time with his mates loitering on street corners trying to work out what a hub-cap is because he feels obliged to steal one. When he's not doing that he'll be playing World of Warcraft.

Number three son is going to be spending all his time on his new computer playing World of Warcraft if Dad (that's me) can get his PC configured - a bit tricky when the little sod never leaves the house when you want him to!

The in-laws would prefer to sit and watch soap operas but, curiously, only ones based in the north of England (whence they hail).

And me?

I'll be promising myself I'll be catching up on all those things I meant to do throughout the year: write the rules to Metric Mile, install a new motherboard on to number 1 son's old PC, tidy up the loft, update my CV, overhaul the Fiendish web site, write a long overdue letter to Stuart and Angela Blower in Canada, sort out my Dad's financial affairs, sort out my financial affairs (I'm sure my brokers stiffed me for £3,000 when I closed down my ISA and yet I still can't be arsed to chase it up), transfer our home videos to DVD, watch the entire canon of Buster Keaton (lent to me by Peter Stanton), weed out my mail file in Opera and so on. And I will do all this after just one more session of X-Com: UFO Unknown.