I realise this may come as devastating news to Ed Davey, but I’m afraid he and I could never live together. Nope, sorry, Ed, there’s no point in begging. My mind is made up. In fact I couldn’t even be your next-door neighbour.

Why? Because you have said that your guilty pleasure is listening to Christmas music … all year round. And that fills me with a horror for which there are no words. I would have no choice but to set my hair on fire and hurl myself off the roof into certain oblivion.

I don’t care what it is — Slade (dear God), Wizzard (ugh), Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine (terrible), Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime (kill me now) — all of it sends me into a spiral of wall-kicking existential despair. I’m beginning to wonder if it’s an actual allergic condition. I can’t even stand to hear Shakin’ Stevens on Christmas Day itself, when I’m half-pished on the sherries, never mind for 55 days prior. I wish it wasn’t so but it is. Other people must feel like me. Show yourselves! We could form a support group.

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Even Fairytale of New York, which is undeniably a great song and deserves credit for not being saccharine crud like most of them, has me flying across the room like a flapping bat to switch off the radio because it has been played to death and sounds to me now like an empty commercial husk. No wonder shops are dying. I avoid all of them in December and buy stuff online because the ceaseless Christmas slop is pure aural torture. How long-suffering retail staff don’t all lose their minds is a Christmas miracle.

But, oh look. Now there’s a brand-new atrocity with which to be tortured. It comes courtesy of Kylie Minogue and, in a very, very crowded field, it may just be the worst Christmas song I have heard.

I was unaware of it until I read that it is going “head to head” with Wham!’s Last Christmas for the No 1 spot so I listened to it and, dear, sweet Jesus, to call it infantile drivel with lyrics that would insult the intelligence of a three-year-old would be to flatter it.

It is called XMAS and involves Kylie singing “X-M-A-S” repeatedly while making the shapes of the letters with her arms in the video. It makes me look back at There’s No One Quite Like Grandma by the St Winifred’s School Choir (Christmas No 1, 1980) and think it wasn’t so bad after all.

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A woman wrote on Reddit this week that she had quit her job because her (much older) colleague insisted on playing Christmas tunes from his computer from 9am to 4pm, the boss did nothing to stop him and she just couldn’t take it any more. Needless to say I have every sympathy with that poor woman. What would have happened if she had asserted her “right” to play death metal in the office all day? I’ll tell you. She would have felt the tip of a boot directly up her backside along with an envelope containing her P45.

Do I sound miserable, bitter and no fun whatsoever? Good! That’s exactly what I was going for. Come on over — the party’s at my place. I need someone to bitch with me about people using, as a verb, the abominable word “gifting”.

In deep water?

Ever worry that we are a nation of wusses? A fire crew was recently called out to rescue a woman — from a glorified puddle.

She had driven through a ford in Hall Green, Birmingham, despite warning signs saying not to, and then, reportedly, panicked. A fire engine and waterproofed crew turned out and threw her a rope along with some sort of buoy on a stick. But as a frankly hilarious viral video shows, she opened the door of her Mercedes and simply walked away clutching the rope, the water barely reaching her shins. I have seen deeper lavatory bowls. Little wonder bystanders could be heard falling about laughing.

One commentator said: “The human race is doomed.” Well, it’s hard to argue with that when doctors literally have to tell people not to bleach their teeth with Domestos or put glitter in their vaginas. Am I going to make a lame gag that the rescued person was driving a Mercedes? Of course! Why aren’t Mercedes fitted with indicators? It ruins the surprise.

Andrew’s a joke. Well, two of them

Talking of lame gags, the Andrew formerly known as prince is said to be facing “further humiliation” after becoming the butt of not one but two “best Christmas cracker jokes of 2025”. Humiliation? Oh please. These jokes are weaker than a moth’s handshake.

“Why isn’t Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor writing any Christmas books?” Answer: “He hasn’t got any titles.” To be fair, that’s not quite as corny as “What does Andrew have in common with a snowman?” They’re both out in the cold.

I reckon Andrew will be relieved that’s as bad as it gets, given some of the fruity jokes that are posted about him online (I cannot tell them here or I’d get in trouble with m’learned friends). OK, I can repeat one: “What does Andrew have in common with Manchester Utd?” It all went downhill when Fergie left.

No? Oh, suit yourselves. There is one upside for Andrew being in the nation’s Christmas crackers. It’s the only way he’ll get a mention round the Sandringham dinner table.