Look at them over there, taking over the manger. It was a quiet little stable before they came. I was getting on very well with the ox before SHE flumped down on the straw and spread herself out. OK, so she's preggers, but that doesn't give anyone the right to do what they like. Why couldn't she have gone off into a corner and had the kid quietly.

Quiet? Not bloody likely! That invisible choir singing, couldn't get a wink of sleep. And that fucking star suddenly hovering over us, coming out of nowhere. How you meant to sleep if you can't turn the lights out?

And then we've had all these visitors trampling in and out, brought in by some guy with wings. What riff-raff! I mean – shepherds! Common as muck. Some of my best friends are sheep, but the blokes who look after them are the pits. Lazy sods. Just sit there, watching their flocks by night, never did a day's work in their lives.

OK, I'll admit the kings brought a bit of class, and very colourful they looked in their turbans and crowns – at least they had the grace to leave their camels outside. But – call those gifts?! Gold, myrrh and frankincense – what’s the use of that lot? Not even a decent carrot or stick of celery. Fortunately they aren't hanging about, which is just as well because the camels are making a hell of a din and beginning to pong.

Now another of those birdmen has come along and told Mary and Joseph and the sprog to piss off to Egypt, so at last we can get some peace. And I can have my stall back, thank you very much. 

Will you look at that! The little sod has pissed all over my hay. I was going to have that for breakfast. The cheek of some people. It's not even as if they're from round here. They're not Judeans, they're from Galilee. I don't know what the world's coming to, allowing them in, putting them up in our stables, letting them use our straw, depriving honest hardworking asses of their fodder. And what thanks do we get? What do you think?

The sooner we have proper border controls, the better.

Howard Bradshaw