(Actually, let's start with the card itself. Without fail it is addressed to my mum, my dad, me and my sister. Seeing my name writ large in his oh-so-neat script especially annoys me, as I am a married woman of 35 and haven't lived "at home" since 1995. Either find out my address or stop pretending to care, but let's not make out it's still the early nineties.)
Irritation aside, this pales into insignificance compared to the round robin itself. It reeks of smugness and self-delusion: his wife's lecturing career, the joys of a minicruise to Antwerp, his fascinating hours volunteering in their church coffee shop, and how their great love is their grandchildren (who at 21 and 18 are surely too old to be spending so much time with Granny and Grandad).
In a spirit of defiance, I wrote my own round robin this year. I'm going to tweet a month every day between now and Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas to family and fiends, near and far. The Southwolds extend our festive wishes. We can hardly believe that 2012 is already drawing to a close, like the long-awaited finale of a tedious primary school nativity.
And what an exciting year it has been! In January, Suzy was delighted with the results of “Almat” washing powder - thank you, good folks at Which? magazine! - and vows that she will never use any other. She finds it keeps her delicates soft, while effectively removing the shitty skid marks from the arse of Simon's boxers (when used at 60 degrees or above.)
He he... I can't stand these bloody round robin newsletters. You must make sure to keep an eye on Simon Hoggart's column in the Guardian in the new year (on Saturdays). He prints extracts from ones that readers have received.
ReplyDeleteI don't really do twitter but it's 1falesia if you'd like to become my first non-corporate fellow twit.