Oxford Circus is a mere stone's throw from the HQ of Situation Publishing -- which publishes The Register and a few other titles, and we were working on Christmas Eve, as you no doubt realised. Some of us here are little imps, so when we tipped out of Oxford Circus tube on the way to Mayfair we were perturbed to see one major store had already put its fir tree, complete with fairy lights, onto the pavement for collection by the rubbish men and women of this world. We thought: "Ah, there was a reason for us to come in, Christmas is sorta dead." As we'd climbed the escalator, Liberty's sale on the 27th was already advertised on the walls. Unfortunately, a mere four weeks earlier, the same staffer was in Tokyo and heard his first Christmas Carol at Tokyo railway station in late November, but was shocked to see as well as hear that Japan, which is not a Christian country, had closely linked Santa Claus to Jesus Christ.