Yes, yes, I realise I am blundering into the World o’ Advent Calendars four days late. Just bear in mind that my health is pitiful and I have the eyesight of a mole, and bear with me. What we are going to do is to jump-start the calendar with four postages today, and you can pretend they have appeared with rigorous regularity since the beginning of the month. I shall endeavour to post the rest of them daily until Christmas or, as John and Yoko would have it, until war is over.

All these birds come from the collection of Andy Martin, tyrannical leader of UNIT, to whom many many thanks.

Our final advent calendar picture is a snap of the contents of a package that plopped on to the Hooting Yard mat earlier in the month. An anonymous benefactor, noting Mr Key’s obsessive interest in the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift, sent this splendid gift, for which many, many thanks.

Hooting Yard recommends the book and the exhibition.

Hooting Yard recommends the book and the exhibition,

Kibbo Kift – the book and the exhibition.

The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift book, the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift exhibition.

Read the book, See the exhibition.

Hooting Yard recommends the book and the exhibition.

Too late, alas!, to join the Kibbo Kift, but not too late, huzzah!, to buy the book or to see the exhibition.

The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift : the book and the exhibition!

By this stage in the advent calendar, you lot will be thinking “who are these Kibbo Kift people?” and – in the words of a Kibbo Kift campfire song – “what are they up to now?”. Well, don’t ask me. Instead, obtain a copy of this splendid book, and go to see this equally splendid exhibition.