Bah bloody humbug

I do like Christmas, and for all the wrong reasons.

I like the drink, the food, the party atmosphere, the Christmas lunches, the decorations, the catching up with people I haven't seen for ages and so on.

Actually I like decorations being up. I loathe putting them up, and taking them down is even more painful. I start unfurling the tree with a great deal of enthusiasm and very soon I'm bored and wanting someone else to take over.

But the thing that has got my goat this evening is the modern version of carol singing.

I remember doing proper carol singing, in which real people actually did real singing. Admittedly this probably caused offence because I can't sing or hold any tune, even Jingle Bells.

I know I sound like a grumpy old woman. Well let's check:

• Grumpy - yes
• Old - ish, OK call it a yes
• Woman - last time I checked, yes

But I don't think that riding around with a huge speaker on the back of a pick-up blaring out pre-recorded Christmas tunes at 130 decibels should be legal. In fact it probably isn't there's probably an infringement of rights associated with recorded music.

Anyway, my point is that it's not carol singing.