I've been dipping in and out of Adam Spencer's "Book of Numbers" which contains some pretty sexy facts. For instance, did you know that snails have sex only once in their lives (I once knew a chap like that!) but the news isn't all bad because when they do, it takes them twelve hours (I once knew a chap like that, too!)
The book also mentions that male sealions may mate with more than 100 females (which gets pretty close to another couple of chaps I knew!)
Which, in a roundabout way, brings me to this little statue which I had once bought in Singapore and which had stood on my bedside table just so as to remind me. I no longer need it (I think the cook took it home with her to remind her husband), but at this time of year I wished I had something similar along the lines of "Once a year Christmas is enough!"
I mean, here we are in 40-degree heat and all the shops are blaring out "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" until his nose falls off, and when we get home Padma switches on her Bluetooth on which she has stored every Christmas carol ever composed.
If I hear one more Christmas carol or see one more Christmas tinsel, it will be the very last tinsel that breaks this one-humped camel's back.
Once a year Christmas is enough! (By the way, I asked Padma what she wanted for Christmas. She said, "Nothing would make me happier than a pearl necklace!" So I bought her nothing. I hope I did the right thing.)
