What’s an Elf’s favourite type of music at Christmas?    Wrap. What do you call an obnoxious reindeer?  Rude-olph. What’s the difference between the Christmas alphabet and the ordinary alphabet?  The Christmas alphabet has Noel. Why does Santa go down the chimney?  Because it soots him. What do you call a broke Santa?  Saint Nickle-less How do you get your Christmas tree ready for a house party?   You spruce it up. Why are Christmas trees so fond of the past?  Because the presents beneath them. Why can’t Christmas trees knit?  They have too many needles. What music should you play to your Christmas tree to keep it healthy?  Spruce Springsteen. Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Mary.  Mary who?  Mary Christmas. Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Olive.  Olive who?  Olive Christmastime, don’t you? Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Honda.  Honda who?  Honda the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…….. Knock, knock.  Who’s there?  Dexter.  Dexter who?  Dexter halls with

 If you have been reading these ramblings for a while, you may have read here:  The Burning Question of Our Times. (oldandireland.blogspot.com , that my conscience is giving me grief for my many years of burning petrol for fun.  You may even have seen this, posted way back in September 2019:  Old Ireland, new technology. The search for reliable solar water heating. (oldandireland.blogspot.com) , where I was looking for a good alternative for a solar thermal system that we had fitted on our roof. The tubes for it were made by a local company called Thermomax, and supposedly had a twenty year guarantee when we bought them.  They broke repeatedly and eventually catastrophically which meant that they were never likely to pay for themselves, and the guarantee turned out to be worth nothing because Thermomax went bankrupt.  Great. Because of my experience with those thermal tubes, there was no way that I was going to fit anything similar any time soon.  Still, I needed something to assuage t