An Epistle to the Oxfordites

The following is from a friend of mine. It is a very late letter from last Christmas. Due to his request for anonymity/paranoia that the feds will get him I have removed any reference to him. He shall hence be known as Mr K.

Every Christmas letter should be written in this style.

4/1/05

Mr B.
You jammy bastard. I do not know how you managed to time it, but your card made its way to me on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, damn your britches and damn your duck pond! I of course look the complete prat as I never sent you one. Until now. And it doesn’t support a charity but I am a complete prick and stand to inherit a small share of a small forest so I am as keen as an Asian in a karaoke bar and insist that as much paper be wasted as soon as possible, as fast as possible, where ever possible.

I regret to inform you that my loot was neither large, nor shiny nor made in Japan this Christmas past. Some of it did fold, but there were far less zeros than there should have been. In fact the loot this year was rather light, I trust the same cannot be said for you. However I am more than happy to report that the beer was cold and the food plentiful. The belt has been let out more than one notch and this occurred well before 4:30pm on Christmas Day. I am delighted to inform you, sir, that in my new position as a CLERK I was rather spoilt as far as wine, beer, food and lunching went. In fact I have had three rather pleasant and relaxed business lunches and one dinner in the past four weeks in some of the best eateries that CITY 1 and CITY 2 have to offer. All completely over rated and utter wank fests but there you are. Shipping companies really seem to like us. Don’t know why.

Do not hurry home for summer Christmas’ sir as they are wet and windy and not the ones that make up the memories of your youth. If one is going to be cool and wet at Christmas, one may as well stay in England. Trust that you had a white Christmas. Ours was verging on grey.

New Year’s was a complete write off. We won’t even go there. Nor was there a day at the beach with cricket, as the weather has stayed consistently wet and I hate getting sand out of various wrinkles and crevices that seem to creep up on you when your back is turned or as you pluck hair out of your nose.

I trust that your mooching paid dividends especially as far as snogging went and that you took suitable precautions if you weren’t being too fussy. I hope that you haven’t caught anything too new nor too exciting. Trust that the slam poet in Prague was … well… slamming and the beer flowed freely and without much fuss. Trust that you have seen ‘Team America. World Police’ because it is damned hilarious and worth a watch after a beer or two… with a port chaser.

The force is with us… always.

Happy Freakin New Year. (Where’s my jet pack!!?)

Mr K.

PS Guess who got a ‘shot’ chess set for Christmas? (Courtesy of Mr and Mrs X). I await a chance to match drunken wits against you sir upon such time that fortune favours us both and smothers us in the ample bosom of favourable timing.