Christmas is a good time for the diary. It pops up as a go-to stocking filler. It offers an ‘ear’ to the reveller/ scrooge in need of letting-off steam/ chronicling happy times (Anonymous GDP 452, 1978). In addition to the diary’s roles as gift, memory-bank and ‘sympathetic ear’, a diary comes into its own as the Christmas-minded assess a year gone and wonder about the next.

Watch this space for more Diary-like presents.