31st December:

Another day, another moral dilemma.

2 days ago I was sitting in the departure lounge at Stansted airport reading the paper and waiting for my wife to return from one of the shops. As I was killing time gazing over the pages of the tabloid bum-wipe that someone had left on the table next to me, I was approached by a rather rotund woman with 3 equally rotund, loud and annoying children and what I can only assume was her sister. It is terrible to jump to conclusions, I know, but the fact that these kids were pestering their mother to go to the duty free shop and buy lip gloss when they all looked like they were barely out of nappies coupled with the fact that her voice could remove wallpaper at 50 paces meant that I took an instant dislike to them. "Excuse me, will you be here for the next 20 minutes?" she asked. "We need to go to the shops so can you keep an eye on our bags?" I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "You all need to go to the shops?" She glowered back. "Yes". And so in the true spirit of human kindness, I said "I'm sorry but I can't help you". I returned to my paper, daring her to ask me to explain myself. Of course if she had, I would have taken some pleasure in pointing out to this mouth-breathing munter that I did not know her, nor she know me, nor did I have any idea what was in her bags, nor did I feel that it was fair of her to push her problem on to a complete stranger when it could easily be remedied by one of the 2 adults staying behind. But she didn't. She just stood there glowering.

The situation was recovered by a small and kindly-looking old lady sitting at the table next to me who volunteered her services as bag watcher. And I sat there with visions in my head of those people who seem to drift through life shrugging their problems and responsibilities off on to other people, thinking "would I have been a mug if I had said yes, and did saying no make me a bit of a rotten person for not being more helpful?"

Christmas is indeed a time for compassion and charity. Depending on who's asking for them.