ACCORDING TO a report in a rival paper — it would stretch the boundaries of Christmas goodwill to mention it by name — pupils at private schools are giving their teachers increasingly lavish Christmas presents.

A former housemaster of Uppingham School is quoted as saying that a 16-year-old gave him an Omega Watch and a bottle of vintage Dom Perignon. The headteacher of Annemount prep in Hampstead Garden Suburb noted that this year’s haul had included Selfridges vouchers, caviar and vodka.

There were no reports about what teachers at the very top schools, such as Eton, received this year — presumably because they were busy whizzing downhill in Klosters in a scree of powdery snow, screaming: “I can’t believe this is all free! Thank you, Fig-Stotton Minor!” at the time.

It is posited that these lavish gifts are by way of gaining the giftor more attention, or to mitigate bad behaviour. I can’t for a minute imagine that it will work — after all, in the recent, high-profile cases where pupils have had sex with their teachers, two of the pupils still got fairly mediocre exam results. Given the failure of red-hot Lolita largesse, the odd fruit basket is neither here nor there.

Obviously if this opulent offering is a trend — and I believe the technical way to adjudge if something is a genuine trend is to wait until there have been three articles about it during a “quiet” period for hard news — then it raises several points. The first is to note, simply, that teachers teach their pupils almost everything they know. Given this recent, unexpected gifting development, one has to say: “Nice one, teachers! You were clearly not born yesterday!”

The second is to note, equally simply, the remorseless logic of private education. First you have to pay through the nose to make anyone even vaguely motivated to teach your child, and then you have to pay again to get anyone to like them. It is worth noting that state school pupils are not part of the lavish gifting trend. “The most expensive thing I’ve had is a box of Thorntons chocolates,” the head teacher of Taylor Road primary, in a deprived part of Leicester, said. One has to say: “Nice one, state school kids! You were clearly not born yesterday!”

Of course, what all this means is that we have started tipping teachers. They have finally joined the postmen and the binmen — professions we consider so utterly bloody awful that we have to bribe them at Christmas not to jack it all in, and leave us, in the new year, up to our knees in filth, down to our last contact lens by post, and having to teach Fig-Stotton Minor ourselves how to spell Mississippi.

Christmas tips are an odd thing at the best of times — the logic by which they are doled out seems very murky. Traditionally the only trades that receive tips at Christmas are the binmen, the postmen and the paperboy — jobs that, while of varying degrees of use to the greater community, are scarcely the three emergency services. Yet we don’t tip the three emergency services. We don’t flag down panda cars and give them a tenner with an awkward: “Have a drink, mate.” I have never given a paramedic something “extra”. So by what logic do we give Christmas tips? Looking at the tipped professions, the one thing they have in common is that they all regularly walk through our neighbourhoods. Could it be that the origins of the Christmas box lie in a pay-off — begging them not to break into our houses when they know, from years of experience, we will be out?

But then we don’t tip other people who also walk regularly through our neighbourhoods, such as pizza-leaflet delivery people. Or prostitutes. It is very puzzling.

Surely the logical, modern way to dole out Christmas tips is to give them to those professions we are most grateful to. I can’t say I’m terribly grateful to the lunatic wastrel postmen of Haringey, who seem to have added a third stage to the delivery process between the parcel being posted and the parcel being delivered — rifling through the package for cash or knickers, then booting it around in a warehouse for a week or two, before dropping off a note claiming that that they “tried to deliver” but I was “out”.

However, I would like to give a big tip to “Adrian” in Bombay who mans Demon Internet’s helpline from 6pm to 6am. Adrian has been very kind to me. Adrian has told me what my “POP3” password is no less than nine times, but has never yet sounded vexed that I haven’t written it down somewhere safe. Adrian deserves a tenner. Whoever it is that designs the dresses at TopShop, I would like to tip him or her. A great deal of TopShop’s dresses have sleeves this season. I have been unbelievable grateful about that. They should have a drink. The Spice & Grill round the corner — chana masala and a bag full of bhajis to the door, in under half an hour, week in, week out. That is a modern support team. They deserve a box. Indeed to be honest, practically the only people who don’t deserve a box are the paperboy (Radio Times looks a bit crinkled), the binmen (Take my cardboard. TAKE IT NOW!) and the lunatic postmen.

I do have a Christmas tip for teachers, though: when you complain about your job, don’t go on about all the “marking” you have to do. It makes it sound as if you are leaving territorial scent marks everywhere. It is disturbing.

Times Recommends

• In the real world, the public sector must pay
• Playing politics in a land of double Dutch
• Be like the plinth people: not set in stone