A word in your ear, Santa!

Dear Santa...... or, Santy as we used always call you back then. You will be surprised at hearing from me after all these years. To tell you the truth, I sulked a bit after my last letter to you on account of the bike and my feeling that you pulled a bit of a cheap stunt on me. I was told that if I wrote to you for a bicycle I would get it and I'm sure you remember the letter well. You probably thought you were dealing with a backward child (be careful, Santy: you can't say that word nowadays) when you brought me the bike my father discarded after buying the motorbike. Nah, the pair of plastic grips on the handlebars and the lick of black enamel paint on the frame didn't fool this kid. I had been a good boy all year but was beginning to realise that being good was only a cod of a racket. Still, I came to love that oul' bike and it had the best dynamo light ever known and the faster I peddled, the brighter the light.I used get my brother Willie to stand on the road: then I would cycle the half mile of straight road up as far as Reagan's - instructing the brother to watch me coming back down as fast as I could peddle. It would then come as a disappointment to discover that Willie could still see, because my father said that the dynamo was so good on that bike it used blind drivers.Anyway, Santy, I'm delighted that like myself you are still going strong more than half a century later. You have done so much good in your time that I feel I owe it to you to mark your cards - Christmas or other, for what will be your most difficult Christmas in Ireland since I last wrote to you back in the 1950's. May I offer you what I think are a few helpful hints which may alleviate what could otherwise be an extremely stressful trip around Ireland for you.For a start, there are no mothers, fathers, mammies or daddies any more; only mums, dads and mummies - just like you used hear on the BBC and we now have moms from American TV as well. Some of our own even call St. Stephen's Day "Boxing Day" - just in case this confuses you. Expectations of children are so high that their parents wouldn't dream of making do with less than ordered. You wont get away in 2009 like you did with my bike, Santy.First of all your journey needs to be planned as never before. Half the country is under water now so you need to modify your sleigh. When I lived in Canada I saw how the natives used skis on their sleighs for snow and floats for crossing water; you are going to have to be similarly equipped. Next, Ireland is now criss-crossed with dual carriage and motorways - but we haven't learned how to use them: You will know that in America or Spain crawlers driving in the overtaking lanes are pulled in and fined by police: Here we just cruise along in the outside lane, so Rudolph will have to overtake on the inside. Nobody uses their indicators except when aggressively cutting in in front of you, so mind your poor reindeers. Parking will pose big problems for you now in the towns so fill your red suit pockets with euro coins.Watch it now, Santy, with drink driving. I don't know if you are still inclined to drink the bottle of stout we always left out for you. Of course, with your magic sleigh you can take to the skies and you will be all right there. Pilots don't get breathalysed: I read of two pilots being arrested for being drunk in charge of planes this year and they would never have been caught only for they didn't know where they were and acted the eejit. Don't fly round and round in circles and nobody will pass a blind bit of notice on you up there. Are you still on the slice of plum pudding in every house? This country has gone mad on a yoke called cholesterol and you look like a prime candidate - but if it hasn't bothered you up until now, steer well of those tests. You cannot light up your oul' pipe anywhere now either, but snorting a line of coke or smoking a joint will not pose any problem… although I know, of course, you would never have gone down that road.When I last wrote you, Santy, parents were not under the pressure of today and we kids were more than satisfied with whatever you brought. Not so now; kids see it advertised on TV and they have to have it. Parents have lost their jobs, mortgages and rising bills have to be met somehow and the overriding worry is that they cannot get the expensive stuff demanded by their offspring. Santy, the greatest good you could do this year, both for the struggling parents and their spoiled kids, would be if you will kindly leave a copy of the eleven rules for students as laid down by Bill Gates when he gave a high school talk recently. In case you don't have them to hand, Santy, here is Bill Gates' advice to kids:1. Life is not fair: get used to it.2. The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.3. You will not make $60,000 a year out of school. You won't be a vice-president with a car until you earn both.4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait til you get a boss.5. Selling burgers is not beneath your dignity: your parents called it opportunity.6. If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault. Don't whine about your mistakes: learn from them.7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now...they got that way from paying your bills, clearing up after you, and listening to how cool you think you are, so before you save the rainforest from the parasites of your parents' generation, and clean up the planet, start with your own bedroom.8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools, they'll give you as may times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and employers don't help you "find yoruself" - do that in your own time.10. Television is not real life. In real life, people actually leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.11. Be nice to nerds: chances are, you'll end up working for one.Santy, as you well know, Christmas should be about proper values: about celebrating Christ's birthday, being together and having time as a family and not about trying to buy love with stupid amounts of money. That should be your message this year.I'll be listening for your bells as always,Yours sincerely,Bernie.