Not having to be back at school until Monday 8^th January is also a bonus.  Any earlier would feel too soon, and any later would probably lead to a particular type of boredom, not least on those post-holiday trips to the supermarket, when it is usually full of men who have clearly been sent out of the house by despairing women and who have no idea where to find anything in the shop.

This year finds our family without too many commitments, even to the point where we are debating whether we can actually spend the whole of Christmas Day in our pyjamas, which sounds like an excellent idea to me.  Tickets have been booked to watch the mighty AFC Wimbledon on Boxing Day, which should be fun.  After a run of home victories and scoring thirteen goals in their last three matches, you would be forgiven for thinking that a home match against the team who are bottom of the league would be sure to result in a high-scoring win for the Dons – but, if so, you have clearly not been following them as long as I have.

My big problem, which of course is neither big nor a problem in any real sense of the words, is what to ask Santa Claus to bring me.  My family regularly remind me that I am difficult to buy for, seemingly ungrateful for what I am given and unremittingly dull with regard to any suggestions I might make for birthday or Christmas gifts.  While this feels a tad harsh, their comments are not without foundation and probably therefore require appropriate reflection.

One of the main reasons I cannot think of much to ask for is that there is genuinely hardly anything I actually want, and almost nothing I need.  I am not sure this is a more general experience or whether it depends on individual points of view, but I have reached the stage in my life where I have more clothes than I can usefully wear in any given season, more wine and spirits that can healthily be consumed in a short time period, enough products to make me smell more fragrant and no discernible hobbies or interests that require reasonable expenditure.

I tried this year, I really did, and I resolved to sit down with pen and paper to compose a proper list.  I made myself believe that I could actually come up with some interesting ideas for gifts.  Suffice to say, it quickly ended in dismal failure – a bottle or two of shower gel, some shave balm and – surprise, surprise – some books.

Working on the not unreasonable assumption that my preferred varieties of washing and shaving products are of little interest, I will share some of the books that are currently sitting in my ‘Saved for Later’ section of the Amazon website, which are also on my Christmas list and which I will therefore hopefully possess on 25^th December or shortly thereafter.  I suppose such an approach takes quite a lot of the magic out of Christmas but, let’s face it, at my age this is a concept that is probably well behind me now.

In no particular order, I like the look of ‘What If? 2’ by Randall Munroe, most of which will baffle me because it will be full of science, but some of which will amaze me because it will force me to think in different ways about everyday situations, which has always struck me as a good idea.  I still use the information I gleaned from the first ‘What If?’ book as an interview question for new pupils, asking for some lateral thought about what will be left after all the human beings have gone – well, no one said interviews have to be cheerful!

As Munroe explained, eventually, humans will die out.  Nobody knows when, but nothing lives forever.  Without us, Earth’s geology will grind on.  Winds and rain and blowing sand will dissolve and bury the artefacts of our civilisation, as I highlighted in last week’s blog.  Human-caused climate change will probably delay the start of the next glaciation, but we have not ended the cycle of ice ages.  Eventually, the glaciers will advance again.  A million years from now, very little trace of human beings is likely to survive. 

However, he continues, our most lasting relic will probably be the layer of plastic we have deposited across the planet.  By digging up oil, processing it into durable and long-lasting polymers and spreading it across the Earth’s surface, we have left a fingerprint that could outlast everything else we do.  Our plastic will become shredded and buried, and perhaps some microbes will learn to digest it; but, in all likelihood, a million years from now, an out-of-place layer of processed hydrocarbons – transformed fragments of our plastic bottles and shopping bags – will serve as a chemical monument to our civilisation.

I have two books about immigration on my list – ‘Natives’ by Akala and ‘Black and British: A Forgotten History’ by David Olusoga.  Everything else I have read about the extraordinarily complicated history of this country, which is often simplified so appallingly into an ‘us and them’, ‘good and bad’, or ‘welcome and unwelcome’ political debate that appeals to some of our basest instincts, tells me that I need to learn more about it so that I can try to make arguments founded on evidence rather than the prejudice that seems to dominate the news cycle, particularly at the moment.

I hope there will be time to share more of Robert Winder’s excellent ‘Bloody Foreigners’ before the summer.  For example, when writing about slavery, he tells us that the greatest legacy of the slave trade was that Britain became infected with the racism that would dominate the twists and turns of migrant life in the future.  He highlights that whether racism inspired slavery or slavery inspired racism is a historically vexed question.  Certainly, the whole enterprise was practised with extreme racism – Africans were seen as savages and heathens, and the metaphorical associations of black and white were powerful.  

Winder makes the point that even minor distinctions within Christianity – between Catholics and Protestants, for example – could precipitate fear and hatred.  White underclasses, such as the Irish, were routinely characterised as savages, too.  So perhaps, he suggests, it is safest to say simply that slavery and racism reinforced each other.  But whatever lay at the root of British hostility to foreigners, through the slave trade it achieved a new and clearer definition.  From now on, Britons would think of themselves as ‘white’, as if this alone was a suggestive and meaningful quality.  In the coming centuries, slavery dwindled, but racism did not.  Anyone who did not possess this exclusive pigmentation would face bitter hostility – hence the need to learn more about what happened and to try to understand it better.

Finally, because the word limit is rapidly approaching – I like the look of Anthony Seldon’s ‘The Path of Peace: Walking the Western Front Way’, which I am sure will appeal for all sorts of obvious reasons, and ‘Murdle’ by G.T. Karber, which looks like just the sort of brainteaser that will prove useful during the quieter moments of the holiday season. 

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, and whether or not your Christmas list is so much better than mine, I wish you all a restful and peaceful time over the break.