Dear Santa

Gez Walsh,

Northern England,

Age..... unspecified!

Dear Santa,

I have just been reading your website and have noticed that there's no age limit to sending you a Christmas present list. I'm so pleased to find this out, because the last time I sent you a list, you left a pile of crap for me which was obviously meant for some very naughty child and not a wide-eyed eight-year-old who had specifically asked you for a full-sized, fully-working Dalek. You mistakenly left me a shitty little plastic suit which was supposed to be a Dalek by mistake!

I am now much older and seem to have a lot in common with you. I'm white of hair and of an unspecified age, and also if my wife had her way, I'm sure that I too would only come once a year! Also, I too would like to help others, so this is the reason why I'm sending you this letter.

This letter is not really for me, because I want you to leave world peace. Now, I know that your big boss, the almighty one, is responsible for quite a lot of these wars ,so I don't want you to get the sack for going behind his back. I'm also aware that there may be others who are asking that you give them victory in a war, so this will also cause conflict for you. So, if you are unable to give me world peace, can you please just let the perpetrators of the wars suffer and not the innocent men, women and children who just want to live their lives in peace.

Also, I have noticed that there are lots of children starving in the world, so could you try to sort this out? I know it's your job to bring happiness to children around the world, and I'm also aware that you only visit the ones who believe in your boss. I know how it works, parents buy the toys and send them to you, for you to deliver! But it has been proven that here in Britain the people who love your visits the most are at the end of the social scale where poverty is a daily routine, Your visit usually causes these people to get loans from greedy types who like to sponsor events using you as a figure head with your safe, wholesome image. These loan sharks place people who can ill afford any debt into total debt, which, if they are lucky, will take a year to pay off, and if not they lose everything with extortionate rates of over 2000%. But then, it would not be fair for me to ask you to help children that may never have heard of you or your boss, and, after al,l there are lots of big multi nationals that want you to bring them a 'bumper' Christmas so they can inflate their offshore tax-free bank accounts even more! So can you just arrange for governments to supply food and aid instead of bombs to the poor and starving for me, please?

I have to say that I seem to have lots of family and friends that are quite ill at this time. Some of these people suffer from life-limiting illnesses, so could you arrange for them to be cured for me please? Now I know that the almighty one gives these illnesses out willy-nilly to innocent children, making them suffer for... well just making them suffer. I know that if people didn't die we would have an even greater problem with over-population. Which could be partially solved by you bringing condoms to parents, well, to those who are not from a certain branch of worship of your boss. I know that you can only work within the confines of your job specification, which is those that can afford get, and those that can't don't. I know that you are not in the miracle industry and that you are only in charge of the consumerism branch of your boss's empire, but could you arrange for at least one week where no bombs are dropped anywhere in the world?  Britain alone spends eight million pounds a night on bombing Syria alone! If  we did this, and all the other bomb-happy countries did the same, then all the money saved could be given to scientists, not pharmaceutical industries, to try find a cure for some of these life-limiting illnesses or even be invested to help alleviate the suffering of some of these people. Because your boss won't listen to their pleas.

I know that this list is hard to sort out for you, because people who could sort all these problems don't seem to be able to, or want to. I know that I'm asking too much of you. I know that you are very busy at this time of year, so if all else fails, could you just bring me some socks and a Pink Floyd album please?