THE festive season within the Ismay household passed without real incident other than the novelty value of the gifts received.

These included Mario Balotelli fire extinguishers for indoor fireworks (bedroom excluded) and some Andre Villas-Boas sun factor cream for the extremely thin-skinned.

Er indoors passed comment on my Shane Warne First Aid book, wistfully remarking that the Spin King had paid his fiancée Liz Hurley the ultimate compliment by now looking exactly like her.

I also received a new alarm clock containing any number of alternative-programmed celebrity wake-up calls.

Audley Harrison instructs you to “count to ten and then get up slowly.”

Kenny Dalglish impersonates a whingeing, yet incomprehensible, Glaswegian stevedore, while Richard Keys and Andy Gray invite you to “Rise and smash it”. I presume a boiled egg?

Neil Warnock bemoans “the failure once again to keep a clean sheet,” and Seb Coe regretfully intones “hardly worth getting up as there are still no Olympic tickets and the cost to the tax payer has doubled again.”

Salman Butt moans “The time? Who cares, in here it’s difficult to know what day it is.”