Here I am, my usually ironing board flat, drum tight abdomen hideously distended by 5 helpings of Xmas pudding. "Will all great Neptune's ocean of gripe water wash this pud clean from my stomach ? No!"

I forgot to load myself up with Xmas day reading and found myself left with one of W Somerset-Hughes' books. Well, let me tell you all that "PatTernoster Row" is a great book. "Why", you ask, "I've heard from reliable sources that it is a load of old cobblers." Not so! Read on and all will be revealed ...

XMAS DAY EPIPHANY.

The Xmas feast covers every inch of the creaking, groaning, sloeback, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing, dining table. The nominal Christian insists on saying Grace. Enough time to read the foreword (Bloody brilliant foreword at that. Best part of the book. Bugger! The next 5 pages have just fallen into the cauliflower cheese.) during the starless and bible-black monotonic rendering of thanks to some non existent deity, who incidently didn't bother to front to take his turn stirring the gravy to prevent it going all lumpy like.

Dinner table discussion turned to refugees. "They ought to send the buggers back with a flea in their ears." "They're not like us, are they?" Lucky them, I interpolate and seek the refuge of Chapters 1 to 5.

Hilarity is about to explode around the table with the arrival of the Xmas pudding drowning in brandy sauce. How to avoid a disengenuous reponse to sniggerings of "Hope you weren't too heavy handed with the brandy, I've got to drive home.", "Not too much sauce for Gran you know what she did last year!" (Died after two mouthfuls, as far as I can remember, lucky old bitch. I think you'll find the old biddy at the end of table is Elsie the bag lady doing her usual Xmas cuckoo rounds.) "Better not have to much sauce or I'll be under the table." "Under the Fred West Memorial Lawn" I subvocalise and tuck away Chapters 6 and 7.

Dispensing of the presents is now upon us... how to respond to the underdaks with the *hilarious* Benny Hill double entendre embroidered across the crotch area??? Escape to Chapter 8.

Chapter 9 barely got me through the parting is such sweet sorrow (MY ARSE IT IS!) ritual, replete with inevitable somberly intoned "Drive carefully, there are a lot of fools on the road these days". I look back at the goodbye waving paper party mad hatted fools, thanking my lucky stars that not one of them would be driving today. In fact they would not be driving on any day. The police breathalyser squad cracks down hard on brandy sauce over indulgence.

My view of "PatTernoster Row" may be a little on the rose colored side but any book that passes my "any port in a storm" test ought have its blood bottled. (Or at the very least, its spine straightened.) Escapist literature? ... you betcha!

Anybody up for swaps? I've got 3 excess to requirements "Garfield Swiss Army Blackhead Remover/Olive Stoner/Nutmeg Grater on a Rope" (complete with 5 year warranty).