Slush

LATER THAT SAME DAY:

{A huge weight, marked "10,000 TONS", has fallen on the snowman. His hat -- and its flower -- lie nearby, disconsolate.}

Real fairy cake

{Holly leaves and Christmas trees}

Snow is lying on the ground
And in the air the sleighbells sound
The frosty-patterned window-pane
It's British Summer Time again
(No it's not, it's Christmas...)

Yes, Christmas, and all children wait
For hoofbeats on the roof
But this year's stockings won't be filled
There's been a mighty goof
Yes, this year there's no peace on earth
No food and gifts abundant
For Father Christmas has been sacked
And his gnomes are all redundant.

Santa Claus is on the dole
He's UB40
His reindeer have been sold for glue
You might as well be naughty
Santa Claus is on the dole
Fini, kaputt, it's curtains
The magic sleigh's been repossessed
The suit's gone back to Burton's.

His elfin help has gone away
Oh, how will he survive?
The grotto rent's three months behind
And his giro's not arrived
He's too old to be reemployed
He's lost his little earner
The igloo heating's been cut off
He'll die of hypothermia...

Santa Claus is on the dole
He's getting thinner
Real fairy cake and Rudolf steak
Will be his Christmas dinner
Santa Claus is on the dole
And things don't look too handsome
His company is being probed
By TV's Esther Rantzen.

Ho, ho, ho.

{A snowman, with a flower in his hat, amid the falling snow.}

Seasonal stodge

SIMON'S SEASONAL STODGE

3 Christmas puddings (large)
½ tbsp roast turkey
1 carrot or onion
58 tsp salt
10 pts milk
6 rancid kippers
    sage
    bread sauce
3 gallons of liquid stuffing

(1) Put all ingredients (save the puds and turkey and salt and kippers) in a bowl or vat and mix at Gas Mark 17 until thoroughly exacerbated.

(2) Tear the kippers up and drop them out of the window onto the head or other bodily ailment of a passing vegetable.

(3) Eat the salt. (Best if downed in one.)

(4) Throw the turkey and Christmas pudding away, and serve. Have guillotine ready, as your dinner guests may despise you.

Poor old uncle Jacques

Ode(?) for Liz

It's hard being a deconstructionist in Oxford
Dogmas don't fit right with the dons
And people laugh when I write up
        my pieces of incomprehensible gibber.

Poor old uncle Jacques
He spent 18 years in the wilderness [good rhyme]
When he tried to convert people
to his ideas.

(I can't remember the song well enough – more later perhaps.)

    Santa's grotto
    Is on the first floor.
            [Found poem: Debenhams]