Santa: the facts behind the myth

"So What should I call you?" I asked.

"Call me Santa!" exclaimed Santa. "All the children call me Santa!"

So. It had come to this. A journalistic career that once had seemed so full of promise now found me sitting in a grotto in Selfridges next to a pile of cuddly toys and interviewing Santa Claus. And not only was I interviewing Santa Claus, but he seemed to have mistaken me for a small child.

Still, I was determined to make the best of it. Adopting a Paxman-like demeanour, I put it to the gentleman in the red tunic with the large white beard that there are many people who do not believe, quite frankly, that he exists.

"Pah!" exclaimed Santa dismissively, "perhaps when people lose their innocence, they don't believe in me as much. But children do. I'm a positive force for good, you see. I'm the embodiment of - how can we put it? - ooh, everything that's nice, everything that's pure, everything that's good. I'm a maker of dreams come true!"

This was all very well, but I also had to put it to the gentleman in the red bobble hat that while walking around London, I couldn't help but notice, quite frankly, that there were rather a lot of other Santas around.

"Oh really?" he replied, sounding shocked. "Oh no, there's only one Father Christmas, and I'm him. And I come to Selfridges because we have an understanding. You may come across many impersonators, but I'm the real McCoy."

"So where do you live?" I asked. (Yes, that's right, I asked Santa where he lives. You may well scoff, but it's actually an extremely controversial topic, as it happens.)

"Ah well, now that's a controversy," replied Santa. (See!) "If you go up through Lapland and just over the Arctic Circle, that's where I live. But you can also go from Greenland and you'll come to the same spot. I'm just below the North Pole.

So there you have it. There are two different ways of reaching Santa's home. And were you to make the journey, you'd find Santa living there with countless dwarves, fairies and pixies. And, of course, Mrs Santa Claus.

"A very kind lady," said Santa. "We'll be going off together on Boxing Day to our little island in the Bahamas. We'll have a little rest there for a month and then we'll start all over again. "

It's hardly surprising that he'll need a break, because he's the head of a major industry. Santa described to me the scale of the operation.

"We've got thousands of conveyor belts and we're producing all these boats and ships and cars and dolls and balls," he said. "At one end you've got three fairies packing them all up into boxes and at the other end you've got thousands of dwarves who are making them all. And it's very difficult making a computer when you don't really know what they're for," he added.

This year it seems the dwarves have been concentrating on one product in particular. When I asked Santa what his most popular request has been, he took a deep breath.

"Teletubbies," he groaned.

By now the queue of children outside the grotto was growing restless, so I brought this ground-breaking, in-depth interview to an end by asking Santa if he'd ever got stuck in a chimney.

"Oh, frequently, frequently," he chortled. "But if I get into difficulties, I have a special powder which reduces me to a very small size. And I can use it if there's not a chimney and I have to come through the keyhole or under the door. And, of course, you do realise that it's all done in a split second of your time. It's what they call the nineteenth dimension!"

So now you know. And he didn't even give me a present. Bastard.

Male stereotypes and radio masts

"Why I sincerely believe that all women are mad" was the headline of an article by the author and journalist David Thomas in the Daily Mail last week. "Women are all mad," he wrote. "A tangled mess of inconsistencies, insecurities and irrationalities. The whole dam lot of 'em." He cited as "evidence" the fact that Michael Dobbs's wife has become a Buddhist priest and wants to be known as o-Sel Nylma, together with newspaper stories about women running off with Eskimos, Masai warriors and Tunisian toyboys. Having been a journalist for some time, albeit one who has now been reduced to writing Santa Claus profiles, I'm aware that such pieces shouldn't be taken too seriously, since their sole purpose is to stir up a bit of bogus controversy. However, if proof were needed that women don't have a monopoly on strange behaviour, it came in the same day's edition of the Sun, which featured a story about 22-year-old David Neale of Kent, who's spent the last 10 years taking more than 3,000 photographs of radio masts. "I had a girlfriend when I was 16 but when I told her what my hobby was, she went a bit funny," he said. "She told me never to mention radio masts in her presence, which I found a bit odd. I haven't bothered with girls since. I get much more satisfaction from looking at these masts." I rest my case.

Stuck with 007's bonding agent

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that the new James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, opens this week. Obviously this is a major event in all our lives, but it's of even greater significance for Graham Rye, who's the president of the James Bond International Fan Club. Graham, hasn't seen the whole film yet, but he's read the script and was able to give me a very comprehensive summary of it. I'm afraid I don't have enough space to share it with you, but I can tell you his conclusion is that "it all moves along in a nice narrative structure, with Bond involved in some first-class action". He also says it's streets ahead of its predecessor, the dismal GoldenEye, which bored him to tears.

Graham was 11 when his father took him to see Dr No on its release in 1962. Two years later, having seen From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, he was hooked. He'd started collecting photographs and posters and he'd also started reading his uncle's Book Club collection of Ian Fleming's novels. He told me about an argument at school when a student teacher used James Bond as an example of a "flat" character as opposed to the rounded ones of, say, Dickens. "That is just not the case. "You know quite a bit about his character by the time you get into the third or fourth book," says Graham. "I still think they're brilliant books. I re-read them when I get the time, but it's usually only when I'm away on holidays, which isn't very often."

Indeed, since 1988 all of Graham's time has been devoted to James Bond and he's quick to point out that his interest is mainly professional rather than the result of some weird obsession. He has a huge commercial archive of Bond-related material and also publishes 007 magazine, which comes out three times a year. (And please note that 007 should be pronounced "double 0 seven" not "00 seven", a mistake which Graham quickly pulled me up on.)

Last month he published a book, The James Bond Girls, which is full of pictures of Bond babes through the years. He says he doesn't have any particular favourite, but he wouldn't mind getting shipwrecked on a desert island with all the women from Thunderball.

So just what is it about Agent 007? "I think every man worth his salt, if he were really honest, would admit it would be really great to be James Bond," says Graham. "For a day, that is. I think for 12 months it would leave one knackered, actually."

Home shopping left me starving

You May recall that I recently received a letter from Tesco Direct Home Shopping. It was all about "the innovative new delivery service that makes your life easier". In other words, rather than having to trek to the supermarket through wind and snow, I could put my feet up at home while the nice people from Tesco did all the trekking on my behalf, bringing quality, choice and value to my front door, as they put it. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity and rang them immediately, and the pleasant Scottish fellow on the other end of the line told me I would receive their catalogue on CD-Rom within seven days. And that was two weeks ago. So what's going on, Mr Tesco?! My cupboards are now completely bare and I've been reduced to gnawing on an old piece of carpet to stave off my chronic hunger pangs. Not only that, but since I live a life of desolate emptiness, I'd been looking forward to spending hours casually browsing through my catalogue. Instead of that I've had to spend 35 quid on a copy of Tomb Raider 2 to give myself something to do. So not only am I starving but I'm out of pocket into the bargain. Get it sorted!

And now it's time to say goodbye

And that's your lot, I'm afraid. After nine months on the People Page, it's time for me to move on to other things. I hope you've enjoyed the last 55,000 words, and I'd like to thank you for all your letters, even the weird ones (and that means you, Don Stallybrass of Bognor Regis). I made Santa promise he'd look after every last one of you this Christmas, so it just remains for me to wish you all a very happy New Year. May all your dreams come true.