A vicar in Dorset has forbidden his congregation to sing O Little Town of Bethlehem this Christmas because the words of the carol do not reflect the “present-day reality” of Bethlehem – ie, a town struggling under the yoke of imperialist Israeli oppression.

The Rev Stephen Coulter knows all about Bethlehem because he went there for a couple of days recently and brought back a satirical wood carving of the stable where Jesus was born, in which the animals are separated from the manger by a large wall built by the Zionist fascists. (Still, at least Jesus would have got a good night’s sleep. Wouldn’t be able to hear all that lowing, etc.)

The Rev Steve particularly objected to the phrase “how still we see thee lie” – because it isn’t lying still, is it? You can’t lie still under the jackboot of foreign occupation. Well, I suppose you could, thinking about it. You could lie very still indeed. But that’s not the point.

The song is not about Bethlehem as it is now, of course, but about the Bethlehem at the time of Our Lord’s birth – when, incidentally, it was also an oppressed township under foreign occupation, as it has been for most of its existence, in fact. Although my guess is that the Rev Steve probably approved of occupation by the Muslim Ottomans. The song is really about the birth of hope for mankind, Bethlehem itself being an incidental detail, a point you might have expected a vicar to grasp. But not Steve.

He might also have banned other carols. Hark! the Herald Angels Sing – how can you expect the bloody angels to sing when our reactionary government is building another runway at Stansted? Good Christian Men, Rejoice – oh yeah, what about Muslim or Rastafarian women? Are they not allowed to rejoice? And rejoice at what? The melting of the polar icecaps and the military-industrial complex? Can’t have much of a Silent Night with all that oppression going on, can you?

Just about the only carol he’d have left would be In the Bleak Midwinter and he’d probably change the words to: “In the bleak midwinter / It was very cold / Especially for Palestinians, single-parent families, lesbians, Muslims and other oppressed minorities / And the very old / Snow was falling, snow on snow, snnnnooow on snow / Despite the very real fact of global warming / Which would have really worried Jesus, you know.”

There’s a useful Christmas message to be found in his adolescent narcissism, inadvertent though it may be. Christianity is supposed to demand self-abnegation, subjugation to the common good. But the Rev Steve, through his brief trip to Bethlehem, has been afforded greater insight into the problems of the world than that enjoyed by his parishioners and so he is determined to inflict his view upon everybody else, at the expense of our enjoyment of a harmless carol. He thinks he knows better than everybody else and has used his tiny power to make sure his congregation toes the line.

His self-importance and egotism are reflected in all the other stuff, all the chest-beating rubbish that you hear from overpaid council officials, headmasters, local politicians, quangos and charities at this time of year. For example, the removal of the word “Christmas” from official celebrations, based upon the entirely erroneous belief that Muslims will be offended or nonreligious people will take offence. Some Muslims, a minority, do object to our Christian beliefs – but not half as much as they object to our vapid, cringing secularism.

And then there’s the headmaster in Nottinghamshire who pulled his school out of a Christmas festival because he feared that it was “too religious”, greatly disappointing all the kids, who had been rehearsing their carols for weeks, and the parents.

So, one way or another, the Rev Steve has done us a favour. On Christmas Eve let every voice sing out – especially in Bethlehem, where a good proportion of the Palestinians are Christian.

+ The ungrateful lower-class pigs who live on the island of Sark have just voted against a bunch of political imperatives commended to them by the Barclay brothers – who also own that neo-feudal outpost, The Daily Telegraph. As a result, a Barclay representative told local people that they had just written “the longest commercial suicide note in human history” and started withdrawing money from the island.

An estimated 140 people will lose their jobs in hotels, shops, estate agents and restaurants because the islanders did not vote precisely as these two rich reclusives wished them to.

“We don’t know how we’re going to provide for our families,” one serf, dressed in sacking and eating grass, commented tearfully to the BBC. Just imagine if Britain was run like Sark, dependent upon the largesse of the Barclay brothers. We’d probably have Iain Duncan Smith as prime minister.

The Barclays wished to urge upon the inhabitants a new era with hotels, a helipad and democracy. The people of Sark argued that they had managed perfectly well for 450 years before the Barclays arrived. Ingrates.

And geek created woman

For years we were told that men would shortly become superfluous, given that women could now procreate artificially without requiring dinner at the Ivy first. However, now the boot’s on the other foot. Some Canadian computer geek has created “the perfect woman”, a robot just like a woman except much, much better, which means we don’t need them any more either. Aiko looks pretty, demure and submissive, does the chores and shuts up during Match of the Day.

She has no sense of smell – a good thing, I reckon. And she will never experience an orgasm; so no change there, then. Okay, Aiko still can’t park a car or read maps, and once a month you have to hide from her while she gets recharged. But it’s a start.

A sport fit for a prince – what fun

Now here’s a puzzle. To raise money for charity, Prince Harry took to the floor as a dealer for Icap, the brokers, and, while working overnight, secured a £10 billion deal through something called a sterling overnight index swap (or “Sonia”). He was assisted in this strenuous activity by a fruity lady dressed as a St Trinian’s schoolgirl.

Without wishing to take anything away from the prince, who has given us so much pleasure in the past by dressing up as a member of the Nazi Afrika Corps, it leaves an important question. Is Harry, with his two A-levels (a B in art and a D in geography, since you asked), really a genius? Or is it the case that these “masters of the universe” in the City are dependent upon sheer, blind luck and anyone could do the job?

+ Have you ever sent a Christmas card to anyone with a picture of yourself on it? Why would you do that? You’re the point of Christmas all of a sudden? Oh, I dunno, maybe you have, in a fit of hubris one year when your career was going well, the kids were happy and you got a big bonus. Look, here we all are, you sad underachieving bastards, a happy bourgeois family, me not looking at the camera because, y’know, it’s the kids who are important, isn’t it? So I deliberately look away when he says “cheese”.

I bet even if you did all that – shame on you – you didn’t sit down and decide: “I think it would look better in black and white. More real.”

That’s a potty in the corner of the Camerons’ Christmas card. Excuse me for a moment while I fill it up.

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