Towering above the rest in a selfless act of relentless self-promotion

Ireland calls today St Stephen’s Day for many reasons, mostly religious, writes Terry Prone. It beats Britain’s ‘Boxing Day’ with its reference to the chaos in which most of us stand today: Leftover boxes, bags, ribbons, and worrying spare electronic bits.

St Stephen’s Day separates the men from the boys, the neatniks from the chaotic, the hungover from the sober. The neatniks fold over every Christmas bag and wind ribbons around their fingers for re-use. The chaotic just gather the whole lot up and turf it in the fire, checking at the last minute that they haven’t gathered up a battery or two in the mass, because a battery going into an open fire has no upside.

A few years ago, I demonstrated my Good Aunt status by slithering the noisy bit out of every Christmas cracker, in deference to a particularly nervous little nephew, only to scare him witless by inadvertently depositing my Ventolin asthma inhaler in the fire.