Failing to have an affair with the secretaries for Christmas

I'm not a happy bunny. Still stuck at the office, on a grey and miserable afternoon, and it's enough to drive a grown accountant to eggnog, I can tell you.

"What?" You are asking yourself, I can tell, gentle reader, "What's Burton Dasset - mild, positively to the degree of meekness, inoffensive, yet oddly attractive in an accountanty sort of way - what's Burton getting so upset about?"

Well, I'll tell you. I got back from lunch today to find that Stephanie and Angela, our secretaries (Stephanie claims to be a PA, but that would imply she's any assistance) - have decorated the office.

We're supposed to be a serious and professional practice. So I don't expect to sit at my desk of a dull Thursday in early December to discover that somebody has stuck a frog in a Santa hat onto the handset of my phone. Nor do I appreciate the tinsel that has so kindly been taped around my PC monitor. Or the three-foot Christmas tree that was placed on my desk - completely obscuring my "John Major 2009" calender. OK, there's only a month of wear left in it, but that's one twelfth of its total value. (Or slightly less, given the office closes over the Festive period). But whatever. I can't tell what the date is now unless I look at the other calender, on the wall. Or the calender in Outlook. Or on my phone or my watch, or in my Day-to-a-page desk diary. And I'm not happy. The polar bear stickers they've put on my keyboard make me angry as well. On the whole I don't need to look at the keys - the Archdruid always says I'm an expert touch typist, and that's why I have to do all the word-processing for the Community. But sometimes I forget where I am and have to look down and then ur fiwa xinokwrwkt qeibf,

And they've programmed my computer to play Christmas carols all day and all night.

And next Friday they're holding the office Christmas party and I've got to pay for half the drinks because I'm one of the bosses, and I know for a fact that they're going to get drunk and that in some circumstances it would be possible that I could end up in an embarrassing situation with either Stephanie or Angela - although in actually fact, surprisingly, neither of them has ever actually suggested such an idea at any of the last ten Christmas parties. Nor, since I put the notice up explicitly forbidding the practice, has anyone photocopied their bottoms or any other part of their anatomy. Except Angela photocopied her face last year, because she wanted to see what she looked like with her eyes closed.

And there's fake snow all over the windows, and a row of plastic Santas and snowmen and reindeers singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" by the drinks machine. And paper chains hanging from the ceiling.

And you can guarantee that on Christmas Eve they're going to compound it by wandering down to the Plough at lunchtime, drinking slightly too much then coming back to work and sitting half-asleep at their desks and demanding I let them go home because who works on Christmas Eve anyway? And then they'll spend all of the break arguing with their families, breaking up with their boyfriends because they don't want marriage or children and come back in the New Year broke and hung over, a stone heavier and covered with spots from all those chocolates. And all this to celebrate the birth of a god they don't even believe in.

It makes me - well, "angry" is such an emotive term, don't you think? It makes me a bit tetchy, let's say. And if anyone says "Gord bless us one and all" once more - well, they'd just better not, that's all.