IT is many years since I was outside a nightclub at two o'clock in the morning. But there I was the other night, waiting to collect my daughter from a Christmas party.

And, perhaps it is because I am growing into an old fuddy-duddy, but I have to admit I was shocked. Not only could you smell the alcohol on people's breath, but you could feel it hanging in the air. And it had poisoned the air to such an extent that it had turned blue.

The women were worse than the men. The men had become docile, but women were standing in the middle of the road, effing and blinding at passing cars. Aggression was over-flowing from their too-tight dresses. It was intimidating.

My good Catholic background tells me Christmas is a time of celebration of the birth of Jesus. It is also a mid-winter break, where people can prepare for the new year ahead. Plus, it gives us the chance to remember our families - it is probably the only time in the year I sit around the table with my relatives and have a good talk.

Yet, to a growing number of under thirties, it is no more than another good excuse for another good night out. In fact, in terms of meaning, the New Year is becoming far more pregnant because the change of the date is a visible thing to commemorate.

But it is not just the young who are changing. You can see road rage on any day, but now the supermarkets are full of trolley rage. People aren't angry with other shoppers but are stressed out, rushing around trying to remember everything.

There's also Christmas card rage. A couple of people have said to me this week - and they weren't joking - that they wished other people didn't send them cards because when you receive a card, you have to send one back.

This, then, is the modern Christmas spirit. Alcohol and stress. The Samaritans take three calls an hour from suicidal people at this time of year.

But I don't think this modern way is making anyone the happier in their headlong rush into stress. So all I want for Christmas this year is a little time in which to relax.

ONE of the most popular Christmas presents this year is, once again, the mobile phone. About five million of them will be unwrapped.

In the 20th Century, smokers were the lepers of society. You'd see them huddled in their designated corners in pubs and restaurants, or hanging around in alleyways outside back doors in the rain because their bosses had decreed they weren't allowed in the building.

But now other notices are going up. "If you must use your phone, be considerate of others," said one I saw in a football stadium recently, and some carriages on trains have been declared mobile-free zones. I predict that mobile phone users, and their irritating shouting and ringing, will become the 21st Century social lepers.

I have been reading recently about an epidemic of rats. Apparently, you are never further than 10ft from a rat at any time. Tosh and nonsense, I thought. I'd only seen two rats in the previous ten years. But, in the last 16 days, I have encountered six.

I was amazed to see two being chased by a cat across a car park outside a fast food chain on Teesside. Another scuttled in front of my car near Castle Eden. A fourth, the size of a cat, scooted out of a garden near Ingelby Barwick and fifth was strolling along the promenade at Hartlepool. And the sixth, the biggest of the lot, was lying dead beside the A66 between Stockton and Darlington.

The article blamed the rat explosion on global warming. There are no longer the cold winters to kill them off. This December so far, temperatures in degrees Celsius have been twice the average and my unscientific rat index is so high it is off the Mallon scale. Are the two in anyway related?

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