There was never much doubt as to whom Kate would pick for the advent calendar (not that she knew that that was what she was doing, at the time). Kate is a woman of reliably excellent tastes, as is clearly demonstrated by the number of events we’ve attended together which nobody else would have dreamed of going to. If you have – as I like to think of it – especially refined and rarefied tastes, it always helps to have a friend who shares them, so that you don’t have to go to things like Kristina från Duvemåla alone. The only tragic aspect of all of this is that I didn’t meet Kate until I was thirty, so I missed out on all those years of potential arty companionship. Still, we have made up for it since then and I look forward to many more evenings of unlikely pleasure and the quiet joy, as intense at thirty-five as it was at fifteen, of having a friend who loves the stuff you love.

Happy Christmas, Kate!