Jams O’Donnell recounts the tale: Santa refused leave to enter

Rev Canon James Rosenthal, who also happens to be a world authority on St Nicholas of Myra , had resolved to bring festive cheer to some children who are at the bottom of the pile of British society – those caught up in the British asylum system.

Rev Rosenthal arrived at Yarl’s Wood dressed in a red robe and long white beard, clutching a bishop’s mitre and crook, carrying presents donated by congregations of several London churches. Sadly he never got past the security personnel who guard the perimeter fence, despite gently protested that he was not a security threat.

Then as St Nicholas, accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, attempted to bless the gifts, the increasingly angry security guards called the police…

Jams says there is video, which the “security personnel” better hope never shows up on YouTube or they are apt to get mugged by gangs of pre-schoolers. This is senseless and petty. This also brings up one of the major disadvantages of privatization – accountability.

The private firm that runs Yarl’s Wood might even fire the people involved, but that isn’t accountability. If this was a government facility some minister would have to explain the situation in Question Time, and might even get called for an interview by Jeremy Paxman [it’s like getting thrown a verbal piranha pool] for Newsnight. If this was a government operation, someone with real power would be sweating, not just the bottom of the pay scale.

Once upon a time people would say of an effective con artist that they “could sell ice to Eskimos.” They may not be buying ice, but Reuters reports that Inuits need cash for freezers in warming Arctic.

I looked at homesteading in Alaska, and most of the people who did it mentioned that you didn’t need a refrigerator, you just dug a hole in the permafrost. Now the permafrost is melting. Imagine the effect of bedrock turning to mush, because there are a lot of buildings in the interior that are set on the permafrost, without a formal foundation.

The way people are dithering in the US, I wouldn’t advise anyone buying property in the four southern-most counties of Florida, as there is a very definite chance that they will be under water in fifty years.

This is Saint Lucia’s Day for Scandinavians.

It features special treats that are handed out by a girl wearing a crown of candles, Lucia coming from the Latin for light, LUX.

Saint Lucia was an early Christian martyr from Syracuse on Sicily, but her official feast day, December 13, fit perfectly with the local pagan celebration of the Lussi on December 13, which was the Winter Solstice at the time. Yep, more cover to continue the fun mid-winter celebrations by pretending they are associated with Christianity to get the Church off everyone’s case.