No place to hide

In Competition No. 2475 you were invited to provide entries from the diary of someone trying to escape from the Christmas season — and failing.

Maybe you were all suffering from pre-Christmas exhaustion, maybe it was an unsuitable comp, or maybe I was in an atrabilious mood, but the entries were so substandard that, to cries of ‘Have a heart, ref!’, I rule that there are only three prizewinners this week. They are printed below, earning £30 each, D.A. Prince taking the bonus fiver.

To fill in the extra space in a seasonable manner I append an entry from Mr Pooter’s ‘Diary’, followed by the last paragraph of Max Beerbohm’s parody of Chesterton, ‘Some Damnable Errors about Christmas’.

21 December: Damned mobile! Switched on for just five minutes to check cricket scores and Celia rings, begging me to drop in for ‘Chrissie drinkies’. Try not to sound smug, telling her I’m on a camel trek in Sahara. Get gratifying ‘Ohmigod!’

23 December: 120 degrees today, but still covered ten miles of sand. Just sand. No tinsel jingles, no electrically flashing icicles. Just Factor 50, sheeps’ eye stew, and discussion of Berber poetry.

24 December: Camel sores responding to sheep fat. Sheeps’ eyes somewhat laxative. Robes now sand-blown and gritty — far from cheap suits and office parties. Real life. Omar tells me about creation myths, and we discuss the ghazal.

25 December: Damn. Omar wakes me with flaming Christmas pudding, decorated with sheep’s eye, and whole group sing ‘While Shepherds Watched’ off-key, with gusto; they’ve learned on internet this is time for gifts. Dread to think what’s in their crackers.

D.A. Prince

20 December: Called police anonymously denouncing self as drunken red-coated driver. No response. Can’t even get flashed for speeding without licence or lights — sleigh flies too high.