Compiled by DON GORDON-BROWN

Pretty, isn't it?
My local London park just the other day, close enough to the 25th for your humble correspondent to be claiming his first-ever white Xmas.
It was really quite beautiful – the only downside was that for a few days afterwards, walking along the footpaths meant you couldn't dodge all the dogshit.

APART from the snow/bitter cold of the fested season over here, there's another eerie thing that happens on Christmas morning. Nothing.
All the suburban streets are deserted. No freckly-faced kids out and about wrecking their new bikes and other toys and kicking their footies and having a bowl. They're all cramped up in their centrally heated houses being kissed and cuddled by aunties and smelly old grannies. And spare a thought for their parents. The statistics for domestic violence in this country at this time of the year must be horrendous.

SEEING it's the time of good-will, I've been seriously thinking of giving a few quid to one old beggar in the subway near my local tube.
He's the only one honest enough to tell me that he only wants some change to go and get pissed.
I haven't given him any yet, as I still suspect he'll just go and use it to buy food.