RATHER than bore you all with the usual column on a single subject I thought I’d draw inspiration today from all those cheerfully-gaudy confectionery selection boxes that adorn the supermarket shelves only at this time of year – the ones that are dearer than buying the component chocolate bars separately. It’s a lot to pay simply for a cardboard box with a cut-out snakes-and-ladders game on the back and a picture of Father Christmas . . .

So here goes with a series of treats (who am I kidding?) – a variety of wordy soft centres, biscuity vowels, chewy diphthongs and bon mots bon-bons to sink your teeth into.

Card sharp: Thanks to a week’s holiday, I’m well ahead with the half-delight/half-chore of writing Christmas cards, though I must admit August was a tad early for posting.

I jest: the hols were in December. I asked at the counter for 25 second-class stamps. “Wallace and Gromit OK?” said the post office lady. “Well, the long-suffering dog’s expressive eyes and body-language manage to convey so much, without words, and that’s amusing, but Wallace is an irritating drip”, I replied. “Overall, I don’t much care for them.” Then I realised she meant the 2010 Christmas stamps bearing their image.

Shiny Apple: By working several Saturdays at the world’s quietest gift shop, Emma has amassed more disposable income than her parents combined. She wanted to spend it on an iPod. Well, �180 could provide safe drinking-water for 200 people, and she’s a victim of fad-driven capitalism, but it’s her graft, her cash and her choice, so I kept bah humbug thoughts to myself. I’ll just slip an Oxfam Unwrapped virtual goat in her stocking on Christmas Eve, to get the point across.

Anyway, iPod arrives and she can’t link it to the world wide web. Ask Elspeth, I suggest. She’s got the same gadget. “She’s not on anything,” snaps frustrated teen. Not on anything? What? Drugs? The stage? A plane to Morocco? “Not on Facebook or Twitter at the moment.”

Er . . . Elspeth is a neighbour – near enough to hear if you open the window and shout . . . Technology: proof it rots brain cells.

Window woe: I still detest the advent calendars I was obliged to buy because I left it too late (5pm on November 30). Emma’s isn’t too bad – main picture of a kitten (they must have had those in the stable) and nicely-drawn images behind the windows of robins, snowmen, holly – but (looking at James’s) it’s unlikely Buzz Lightyear and three-eyed aliens from Toy Story were in Bethlehem at the time of the census.