A number of other bloggers have links to an Amazon Wish List or similar. This seems wildly optimistic to me. I can't believe a stranger would ever actually buy them anything off these lists. However, I suppose it is a handy place for your Mom to find out what you want for Christmas. If anyone has actually had anyone buy them anything off one of these lists, please let me know.
That said, I do buy lottery tickets from time to time even though I know that winning the lottery is impossible from any rational point of view. I suppose my thinking is that winning the lottery would probably change my life. And so, if any mathematically impossible event is going to happen to me, I would rather it was winning several million quid compared with a complete stranger buying me an O'Reilly book. And it is Christmas, the season of greed and goodwill to all, so I'm going to share with you, my anonymous and hopefully hideously rich reader, what I want for Christmas: A box at the Royal Albert Hall.
Apparently, one is up for grabs right now. This doesn't happen very often.. It's box number 70 and seats 5. It's actually a lease for 863 years. The price is £250,000. I'm not sure how you'd wrap it, but I would like it delivered by Christmas because Cirque du Soleil is coming to the Royal Albert Hall in early January and I'd like to take some friends to it.
Actually, when it comes down to it, the box would be nice, but I'd be content with just the use of someone else's box for any night the Cirque is performing. I'm a bit of a circus acrobatics junkie. It's something I've always meant to pick up as a career. Admittedly, it's getting a bit late in the day for me. I suspect many of the really good acrobats start training sometime before they turn 40 (which only gives me about four months).
So, for now, at least until I start training in earnest, I suppose I have to be content with watching from the sidelines. Surely, there's an upper-class twit somewhere who must have room for me in their box.
I mean, if, as seems to be the case, some of those boxes are owned by actual people and not just corporations, they must be empty a good portion of the time. How often would you need to go see the same show? Surely, one of you out there is going to have a box that would otherwise be empty in early January. Even if you have just a couple of seats free (it would be rude to go without my missus), that would be fine. We'd be very quiet and not drink all the champagne. I promise.
Anyway, that's what I want. I can always get work to buy any O'Reilly books I might need. But there is no way I could get my boss to splurge a quarter of a million pounds on five not particularly comfortable chairs and some red drapery. So, if you can help, if you're Earl Spencer say, (I happen to know he has quite a nice box) please contact me and let me know how I can pick up my gift. A card might be nice as well.
Thank you in anticipation.