Postcard from... New York

I have had to queue crammed like a heifer in Best Buy for a gift the nature of which I can’t divulge here. (The recipient may read this.) And I have again agonised over whether this is the year I really can stop sending out cards. (It is.) But these are small Christmas stresses. I’m lucky, I’m a guy.

We now learn that women in America will be 11 per cent more stressed than men this year about all things Christmas. I am happy to hear this. My blood pressure will, I assume, be 11 per cent less than theirs and I will have 11 per cent more fun. For this knowledge we must thank Lantern, a group that researches human well-being.

They arrived at the number by interviewing 2,000 people about what does and not does not send them into a tizz as Christmas approaches and then applying an equation that spat out the 11 per cent.

Is anyone surprised that Christmas is harder on women, working women especially? But maybe it’s good us males are reminded what Santa sloths we are.

Here in our offices just off Times Square we are gearing up for our Christmas party on Wednesday. Well when I say “we”, I mean Daria, who is organising everything. Of course she is. It will be my job to pour 11 per cent more alcohol into her egg-nog.