Remember that P G Wodehouse story where Jeeves shimmers into the presence on Christmas morning in a Santa suit, waking Bertie with a steaming cup and a sonorous ‘What ho-ho-ho, sir! God bless us, everyone’?

Neither do I. Never happened. As seasons go, Yuletide did not recommend itself to Wodehouse. His favourite carol, he once said, was ‘Christmas Comes But Once a Year’. He tended to write not about Christmas, but around it.

Maybe that’s one reason I find myself binge-reading him as Christmas hoves into view. The whole seasonal ballyhoo, the gift racket in particular, taxes the equilibrium, and Wodehouse has a calming effect, soothes the fevered brow, knits up the ravell’d nerve.

But while the holiday season does