I understand children these days may now post a letter directly to Santa Claus by way of Royal Mail. The kindly gentleman must have increased confidence in his distribution systems. When I was a boy we assumed at least a 50% possibility of ‘Dear Santa’ notes being lost halfway up a chimney – and must, therefore, make allowances if Christmas morning brought something other than we’d politely requested. This development in communications is all the more impressive because it is apparently unnecessary to send such letters ‘tracked’.