A good evening at the Greenwich Union with a reduced contingent of the Gothsluts, after a day with only a couple of lessons and not a lot else -a spot of shopping at Sainsbury's, ini relation to which.. it must be Christmas. If I have to hear Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer once more... I'm not sure why I loath that song in particular, I don't mind, on the whole, the NYC 1930's Christmas song thing, it goes with black and white films in which real snow falls heavily outside while enormous xmas trees indoors are covered in baubles and fake snow.

I've said before that I go along with Dawkins' quip about being a 'culturally Christian' atheist. True, I don't believe in any of the bits of biblical legend any more than I believe in Father Christmas (does anybody still call him that, btw?) but I do believe they represent things that are important for us and markers -the mid-winter celebration is much older than Christmas. I grew up in my corner of the north of South America putting up plastic Nativities at Christmas times, as well as Christmas trees that were at first plastic and later came from Canada, putting lights and fake snow on them. Im not sure whether I thought both (pine trees and snow) were typical of the Middle East or whether I thought Bethlehem was somewhere in Northern Europe...

Tags: christmas, life of flav