29th October:

The clocks went back one hour last night and we have returned to GMT. This can only mean one thing: the imminent arrival of those Christmas gift catalogues that seem to fall out of every newspaper, magazine and supplement that graces your letterbox.

Does anyone remember those Roger-Moore-eyebrow-inducing ‘Innovations’ leaflets, full of tempting tat for the home that was so naff even QVC wouldn’t touch it with the proverbial soiled branch? Today, however, the landscape has changed and these primary-needs comestibles have gone all hi-tech. USB foot-warmers, anyone? Battery-operated snore stoppers? 30cm-tall Animatronic Cyberman with biomorphic articulation? Blue Man Group Percussion Tubes with play-along CD? DIY frontal lobotomy kit? OK, I made that last one up. The medium may have changed but it’s reassuring to see that the song remains the same.

Remember the good old days when you knew exactly what you wanted for Christmas by around September? It was always a thing: a bike or the Millennium Falcon or a trampoline for the back garden. Then one day you wake up, you are 26 and you’d be quite happy if your parents simply paid off the balance on your Amex card.

‘Tis the season. Resistance is futile.