Today’s task is to SING CHRISTMAS SONGS, which since there are no carol services or singalongs this year we will all have to do at home, by ourselves, so I have chosen a song which everybody knows in order to give you no excuse not to join in. Yes, even you. I encourage you to consider this a mere jumping-off point, to be followed up immediately with your fullest and finest Christmas repertoire. You definitely know more Christmas songs than you think you do.

(You also definitely know fewer Christmas songs than I do, but that is because I have spent around <maths> thirty hours a year since 2008 on my musical advent calendar, which by my calculations gets me 3.9% of the way to Malcom Gladwell’s ten thousand hours and hence somewhere between “expert” and “Michael Gove” on the expert scale.)