KEY POINTS:
Most companies send Christmas cards and some are becoming pretty inventive with flash animations around a general Christmas theme - but a Sideswipe reader, who wants to remain nameless, reckons his company gave out the worst Christmas theme cards. "Well, you work this one out," he says.
Do any other readers know a company that managed anything less Christmassy?
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More than a third of Britons do not understand the meaning of Boxing Day, with some believing the name refers to fighting, according to a poll.
Boxing Day originated in Victorian times, when the rich would box up gifts and give them to the poor. But modern-day Britons seem to have forgotten the humble beginnings of December 26, with 17 per cent thinking it is the day to rebox Christmas gifts to keep them safe and 15 per cent believing it is for sporting fixtures between neighbouring villages. And 4 per cent replied that it was the day for families to sort out their differences with a physical scrap, according to the survey for the National Lottery.
The belief that Boxing Day is for boxing another person is highest among 18- to 24-year-olds, with one in five reckoning on a fight the day after Christmas.
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Sideswipe hangs its head. The Starbucks "pay it forward" chain story yesterday is not as wholesome as it appears, according to consumerist.com. The coffee company gave out vouchers which meant that anyone who bought a beverage for someone else got their own one for free. Restoration of faith in humanity is duly crushed.
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The Pogues' singer Shane MacGowan, best known for his duet hit with Kirsty MacColl, Fairytale of New York, has told a newspaper he never thought he would live to celebrate his 50th birthday on Christmas Day.
"Smoking, drinking, partying - that's why I've stayed alive as long as I have," the hard-boozing MacGowan told Britain's Daily Mirror, while flat out on his back in a trashed London hotel room.
"To be honest, I never thought too much about getting to 50. But if everyone keeps making bets that you are going to die at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon, you just tend to think, 'F*** it, I'm not going to die as long as those f****s are alive'."
