Column: Dear Reader 01.01.15

Has anyone opened any of their presents yet and, if so, what did you get? asked the vicar of St Michael in Markington on Christmas Day morning.

I said nothing. I didn’t want to admit to the rest of the congregation to having been given a book of the poetry of Lord Byron.

I’m not the world’s most religious person but St Michael is a lovely little church with an impressively enterprising vicar.

At one point in his sermon he used a length of white cord to illustrate a particular point, folding and unfolding it, making it seem short then long, snipping a bit off the end with a pair of scissors with some skill.

As I squeezed past him on the way out I thanked him for the service and said how much I’d enjoyed the “Derren Brown bit”.

The look on his face made me wonder whether he was a fan of the show.

I didn’t watch much telly over Christmas and disappointing viewing figures show I wasn’t alone in this.

Commentators blamed the rise of Netflix and “the fragmentation of programme delivery systems” but a quick straw poll in the Harrogate Advertiser office revealed that old-fashioned ‘interactive’ party games such as charades seem to have made a comeback, too.

It reminded me of my grandparents’ house and the upright piano that took pride of place in their living room for several decades.

I don’t remember seeing anyone playing it much but I do remember being horrified as a small boy one day at the sight of various relatives dragging it into the back garden before proceeding to smash it to bits in a laborious and noisy fashion.

I’d always assumed that the days of family sing-songs had been superceded by the brand new colour TV in the corner.

But an uncle told me recently that, in fact, it had never been played.

This fine-looking instrument had lain unused since the day it first arrived.