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Date:         Wed, 16 Dec 1992 21:31:18 CST
From:         tushar@MATH.UCHICAGO.EDU
Subject:      ALAN COREN: And A Happy Saturnalia To All Our Readers!

            And A Happy Saturnalia To All Our Readers!

                         (By Alan Coren)


    The Magi eased themselves down from  their  horses,  wincing,
and  blew on their fingers. They had had a cold coming of it. Not
to mention a cold going back.
    Melchior took the myrrh out of his saddlebag  and  stared  at
it.
   `We aren't half going to cop out,' said Gaspar gloomily.
   `He'll go up the bloody wall,' he muttered. `I  bet  we  won't
even get expenses.'
   `I've a good mind to hang on to the gold,' said Balthazar. `We
could  say  we  got mugged. We could say prices in Bethlehem have
gone right through the roof.'
   `He'd never wear that,' said Gaspar. `He'd have our hands  off
at  the  wrist  before  you  could say Jack Robinson. Heads up on
poles as well, I shouldn't wonder.'
   `Come off it!' cried Melchior. `We three kings of Orient are!'
   `WERE, more like,' said Gaspar. `Be lucky  to  end  up  as  we
three corporals.'
    They shuffled wretchedly inside, and knocked on a door marked
MAGUS-IN-CHIEF.
   `Come.'
    They went in. The Chief Magus looked  at  them.  He  saw  the
still-wrapped gifts.
   `What's this, then?' he said, slowly.
   `Couldn't find Him, could we?' replied Balthazar.
   `You WHAT?'
   `Solid cloud,' said Melchior. `Couldn't see a hand in front of
your face, never mind stars. We asked all over, though.'
   `It was like looking for a needle in a wossname,' said Gaspar.
`It's got more stables than you've got hot dinners, Bethlehem.'
    The Chief Magus glared at them for a long time.
   `You realise what that means, I  suppose?'  he  muttered.  `It
means  no Christmas, that's what it means! It means bloody Satur-
nalia again, orgies, sacrifices, people off  work  for  a  month,
production up the spout. And what about this lot then?'
    He pointed to a pile of paper in his out-tray.
   `What are they?' asked Melchior.
   `Christmas cards,' snapped the Chief Magus.  `Only  spent  the
last three days writing addresses, didn't I?'
   `You'll have to nail some ads up,' said Gaspar, `telling  peo-
ple you're not sending cards this year.'
   `Or any year,' muttered the Chief Magus bitterly ...


    The Chairman stood on the opposite pavements of Oxford Street
and  stared  across  at  his  store. Above the giant papier-mache
models on the facade, a banner shrieked MERRY SATURNALIA 1976! in
great, red, sateen loops.
   `You'll notice,' murmured the Head of Design,  indicating  his
creation with a lily hand, `that this year's leitmotif is rape.'
   `It always is,' said the Chairman.
    The Head of Design glowered at him through burning lashes.
   `I happen to be very into tradition,' he said  tightly.  `SOME
people think it's very hip to have a load of symbolic perspex tat
about the birth of the sun, but I'd rather be DEAD than  oblique.
I  suppose  you  fancy  Harrods'  rubbish  this year, all dancing
rhizomes with funny hats on and Mother  Nature  in  a  garlic  G-
string?'
   `I didn't say so,' said the Chairman.
   `You didn't have to, Dennis. I could see it in your  face.  It
was  one of your Looks, wasn't it? Personally, I think it's sick-
eningly twee. I mean, it might be all right for THEIR market, lot
of  sentimental old dykes coming up from Cheltenham to buy French
reproduction telephones, but it isn't ours, duckie. We're at  the
solid, no-nonsense, family end of the market, people coming to us
want to see something they can understand.'
   `I suppose you're right,' said the Chairman. He  shielded  his
eyes  against  the sharp December sun. `What exactly IS that that
Uncle Holly is doing under the sled?'
    The Head of Design sighed, rolling his eyes.
   `The trouble with you, Dennis,' he said, `is you don't get out
enough.'


    The agent shook his head doubtfully.
   `I'm not happy about this, he said. `I'm not happy about  this
at  all.   Couldn't  you  just rough him up a little? Knock a few
teeth out, break his arm?'
   `Out of the question,' said the Head of  Light  Entertainment.
`The  BBC Saturnalia Variety Spectacular is the high point of the
year. With an 18 Pound license-fee, the public has a right  to  a
decent  human sacrifice. What kind of a finale would it be if the
Vestal Virgins just danced down the stairs and knocked the star's
teeth  out? There's going to be twenty million people tuned in on
Boxing Night, just had a nice dinner, full of booze and  seasonal
spirit,  how  are  they going to feel if after all that, if after
sitting through the obscene ventriloquists  and  Schumann's  Las-
civious  Horses  and Royal bloody ballet excerpts from Nude Lake,
they're forced to watch Des O'Connor just crawl away in splints?'
   `But DECAPITATION!' protested the agent. `Des has always  been
such a snappy dresser. What's he going to look like with his head
off and his lavender tuxedo ruined?'
   `He can count himself lucky,' said the Head  of  Light  Enter-
tainment.  `London Weekend are going to boil Reg Varney in oil.'
    The agent sighed, and drew the contract towards him.
   `Go careful at  rehearsal,'  he  said,  scribbling  his  name.
`Remember, I got a family to feed.'


    Arthur Sidgewort hung the last rhino-horn on the tree,  wound
up the satyr on the top, and climbed down the step-ladder.
   `I suppose I'll have to sleep with your cousin from  Stockport
again,' he said.
   `Maureen's very nice,' said his wife, adjusting a  fairy-light
so its gleam fell across a dangling rat. `She always brings some-
thing for Grandpa.'
   `Last thing she brought was that  inflatable  brunette,'  mut-
tered  Sidgewort.   `Her  stopper  flew  off in the middle of the
night and she  whizzed round the room smashing all the  souvenirs
he brought back from the Spion Kop.'
   `She's never said an unkind  word  about  you  in  her  life,'
snapped his wife.  `She likes you very much.'
   `You don't have to tell ME that,' said Sidgewort. `Last Satur-
nalia,  I didn't get out of traction till February 3rd. I suppose
it'll be you and my Uncle Norman. I don't know what  you  see  in
him.'
   `I don't see anything in him, Arthur. That's the whole  point.
Saturnalia  is  the  time for giving. Sometimes I don't think you
know the meaning of the word charity.'
    He was still glowering at her  when  the  doorbell  rang.  He
opened  it.  There  were two dustmen standing on the mat, beaming
and touching their caps.
   `Merry Saturnalia, squire!' they cried.
    Arthur Sidgewort turned his head.
   `Doris,' he called, `it's for you!'


    In the vestry of Mars-by-the-Wall, Bromley, The  Rev.  J.  D.
Huggett  took  off  his  laurel wreath, sighed, and pulled on his
rubber coxcomb.
   `I think the moth's been at the skin, vicar,' said his sexton,
shaking the fleshtint folds and struggling with the zip. `Perhaps
we ought to get a new father Saturnalia outfit for next year.'
   `Don't be ridiculous, Mimsey!' snapped the Rev. J. D. Huggett.
`Where's the money coming from? If there was anything in the kit-
ty, would I be going out in this filthy sleet to sing carols  for
the caryatid fund?'
    He stepped into the legs of the skin and worked  it  up  over
his body.
   `We've put on a little avoirdupois since last year, I  do  be-
lieve!'  simpered Mimsey. `I think I'll put a stitch in that nav-
el, it's stretched something terrible.'
    The vicar pulled up the  zip,  not  without  difficulty,  and
tugged  at the nipples to bring them into some sort of reasonable
symmetry.
   `How do I look?' he said.
   `Not TERRIBLY nude,' said Mimsey. `I think  it's  the  leather
elbows.'
   `It'll be all right in the dark,' said the vicar.  `I'll  look
naked  from  a distance. The boys can stand on the mat, I'll sing
from the gates. How is the choir dressed this year?'
   `They're broad beans,' said the sexton. `I thought it'd make a
change from radishes.'
   `Good thinking, Mimsey!' said the vicar, nodding his comb, and
stepped out into the inclement night.
    The twelve broad beans fell in behind his plump  figure,  ac-
ceptably  pink  in  the streetlighting, and the little procession
moved out of the graveyard, walking in single, relatively  digni-
fied, file until they reached the first house.
    Whereupon Mimsey advanced up the  path  with  the  collection
box, the Rev.  Rev. J. D. Huggett twanged his tuning fork against
a convenient gnome, and  the  broad  beans  opened  their  little
mouths and in a clear. sweet soprano began to sing:
   `Four-and-twenty virgins came down from  Inverness,  and  when
the ball was over there were four-and-twenty less, singing ...'
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