it's officially christmas

Well, it's officially Christmas - the Radio Times Christmas listings came out this week.

Nothing makes Chrimbo feel like it's here quite like buying the Christmas edition of the Radio Times. To be frank, not even the day itself feels quite as Christmassy as going through the Radio Times seeing what's on and marking out the stuff I want to watch.

And speaking of Christmas, my sister has pulled one of her classic manoeuvres.

For some reason, my sister has this weird attitude whereby everybody else is made of money, but she's so poor she can't spend any of her own. So usually I'll receive an e-mail from her asking me what I want but, either via subtext or an outright statement she'll suggest that she's not got much money to spend.

I'll happily oblige by providing a list that contains a variety of options, none of which is that expensive, but that can also be sensibly combined to make whatever sort of value she can spend.

Which is all fair enough, and sometimes she does a reciprocal thing. But also sometimes she executes one of here classic manoeuvres.

I should note here that my family long since abandoned the notion of guessing what we want - we all just ask each other. So much easier. And my tactic of providing options maintains some element of surprise to the gifts.

So this year she's asked for an FM transmitter. These are small things you attach to an MP3 player and that broadcast the signal so you can then pick it up via your car aerial. In other words they let you play your MP3s through your car radio.

The reason (well, if you can call it that) she wants this is because the CD player in her car has apparently packed up.

But here's the thing - she doesn't actually own an MP3 player.

So what she really wants is an MP3 player and one of these transmitter things. Only she's decided on which model she wants, and of course she's picked out what are about the most expensive versions. So we're talking Apple.

Being one of my sister's classic manoeuvres she actually wanted an iPod Nano, but specifically not the most recent version of the Nano, but the previous model Which of course they don't make anymore and so is at a premium.

But even if we don't get her that we're still talking an over-priced Apple Touch or something like that.

And that's all that's on her list - there's no "If you can't afford it here are some options for books or DVDs."

Classic.