29th December:

When your congenial host was just a nipper, the phenomenon used to be referred to as the 'January Sales'. The principle was a simple one: on the first weekend after the New Year the shops opened and all stock was reduced. These days, however, it is a rarity to see any retail outlet not open at 7am on the 26th of December peddling three year old stock and assorted detritus specifically bought in from a Chinese warehouse to the masses as 'genuine bargains'.
If they even wait until the 26th...

This whole ritual of elbowing your way through the throngs with a banging hangover and rifling through bins of badly organised and mislabeled tat is a uniquely British affair, and once more I feel that we could learn a thing or two from our continental cousins. In France, for example, sales are regulated by the government. They happen twice a year, must start and end on specific dates, and reductions have to be applied to all items already in stock - it is illegal to buy stock in specifically for sales and this law is strictly enforced by the local authorities. All sounds a bit more civilised, doesn't it? And a bit more in tune with the whole concept of what a sale should actually be. Unless you do actually want to buy a size 20 bikini in December.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas this year, analysts suggested that sales of goods via the medium of the Interweb would be up 40% compared to 2005. High Street shops have apparently been taking a serious gubbing from their on-line counterparts, and the novel and imaginative response from the major city-centre retailers has been to start their sales earlier. And they wonder why they are heading the way of the Dodo...

Do us all a favour. If you must have a Christmas sale, give us a couple of days to recover from the Christmas pud and that last glass of cheap port and then open at 9am, having marked everything in the store down by at least 15%.

Oh, and do it quietly. I'll still be in bed.