This morning I went to post a letter. I got into work at 8.46, and noticed the post office just across the street a little further up the road from our building. Naturally I thought nothing of nipping out for a few minutes to tick something off my 'to do' list for the day. In fact, I was actually quite looking forward to it. I was intrigued as to what sort of a place would a hungarian post office be, what sort of people populate it, and would I be able to buy things like health insurance for my cat. So, I set off out the building and turned right to head up the road to find a place to cross. Now, after 5 minutes walking I began to think that perhaps I had chosen the wrong direction to find such a crossing place, BUT, just a little way ahead I noticed a junction with traffic lights, so decided to carry on. Unfortunately for me, and for anyone else who's been so foolish as to set out on this merry little journey, this junction was for vehicles only. But in the distance, another set of lights, and some people crossing the road! I carried on. It was a couple of minutes later that the pavement stopped and I entered a sort of building site following the only path I could, which was made entirely of compressed muck. Thankfully I was able to cross at the next set of lights, half way to bloody tesco with my office in Millenium 1 almost a speck in the distance behind me. I eventually returned to work half an hour after I left with muddy feet and a postage receipt triple (no joke), yes, triple the size of the letter I sent. Oh, and people in hungarian post offices, they put too much garlic in their dinner.

I woke up today to find that Santa Claus had left choccies and a bottle of bubbly in my porch.
There was a charming little note wishing me a happy christmas from Santa and whilst I was very grateful and more than a little excited, this was of course tinged with slight concerns that the hotel management were obviously off their rocker at getting the date so wrong! This was quickly followed up by my then starting to worry that I had done a Sleeping Beauty and overslept last night by about three weeks!

Coming into work, Santa had also left me MORE choccies - and not only that...as in the night he had managed to do the very same for all of my collegues. Now, at this point my mind started to wander into possibly uncharted territory, formulating a discourse entitled 'Narcissism or Self-Loathing: Christmas time for Santa'. He does in a rather liberal fashion, after all, distribute all these choccies made in his own image. That is, the image of a red faced chubby old alkie - Is he, as we are led to believe, altogether filled with glee that this is the image we demand, or is there an underlying despondency? Discuss.

But anyway! It turns out that December 6th is the first of Hungary's two Christmas days, the second being December 25th of course! Today me and all the other big children of Hungary have been visited by Santa, and it has made me very happy. Best is, I have it on good authority that he'll still come to me in Scotland later this month.

The only downside being that I won't be around in Budapest when baby Jesus delivers his gifts on December 25th. Yes, you read that correctly...JESUS. Being a good holy moly, I thought like you that he had retired a couple of thousand years ago after living a long and happy life with his wife, Mary Magdalene, the whore. Dan Brown must have missed out the divorce which would explain why he has had so much time to spend chumming up with St Nick over the eons.

So, to put all those questions of 'How can he get round the world in 1 night?' and 'Can Santa stop time?' to rest. I can now confirm that the answer is a little less fantastical. Christmas is essentially a racket operated throughout December by Santa, the baby Jesus, and Mister Hankie the Christmas Pooh, each sharing the headline date in their own countries. Initial investigations into the origins of the split suggest a monumental game of paper, scissors, stone in 1836. Is it any wonder that Buddha finds this all so amusing?