A message for Saint Nicholas

Dear Santa

First of all, I'd like to apologise for any offence, real or imagined, that I may have caused you in the past. Your long-running commercial links with the Coca-cola company represent an incredibly forward thinking Public-Private Partnership (the Tories didn't catch on for another 50 years), and are absolutely not the actions of yet another bloated institute whoring itself out to corporate interests, as I may have implied. However, lets just be clear on where we stand. You and I both know that you have absolutely nothing but the purest motives when you break into peoples homes whilst they're asleep and appeal to the basest materialistic instincts of their vulnerable offspring. It would be a shame in these paranoid times, though, if someone in the popular media, (someone with their own website perhaps) was to let slip the real reason you live in the North Pole - a region not noted for stringent enforcement of child sex laws. I'll do for you what I did for the Catholic Church, you dirty old sod.

Now we understand each other, let's get down to business. My list this year may seem a little unconventional, but if you can break the theory of relativity to the point of visiting 60 billion homes in 24 hours then this lot should be a doddle.

First of all, I would like an induction coil. Hand-cranked is fine, but it must be portable enough to fit in a small bag, and capable of inducing a satisfyingly painful signal from, say, 7 metres, into the headphones of any anti-social git who insists on polluting my morning bus-ride with the tinny aural fallout of their faux-latino pop music.

Secondly, I would like one of these. It's true that I don't spend much time clearing anti-personnel mines these days, but I am so heartily weary of scrummaging my way past a gaggle of undergraduates whenever I have to walk down a busy corridor - the ability to explosively clear a path 1m wide and 45m long would certainly help me get to meetings on time.

Finally, I've had my eye on a taser for some time now. No particular reason, I just think it would be fun to painfully incapacitate people without even getting up from my chair.

So there you have, not outrageous list by any means, but then I'm not a greedy man. I know it's usual to leave a scotch on the mantelpiece, but the local filth have been right on the case with drink-driving this year and the last thing you need right now is to lose your license.

Yours,

F. Fastrousers (Capt)

Ps Don't even think about involving the filth. I know people.