More merry hell on the motorway

I'm not sure why young, working families like mine are expected to do the driving to retired parents. But the upshot is that Christmas is an exhausting charge around the country, the best of which you can say, as you stagger back to work, is "at least the kids and the grandparents enjoyed it".

In fairness to my folks, they did make the trip up to us from the West Country last weekend, this being my mother-in-law's turn to have us, and my father-in-law and his second wife will also come to London. But as an emailed order of battle from my mother-in-law up North makes clear, her celebration will be of an entirely different order.

She claims that she has tried to "build in personal family space" to the schedule - surely the holiday's whole point? - with a two-hour slot of "free time" on Thursday afternoon. We'll need it, because in order to feed the 20 or so relatives attending, there will be a strict cooking rota. I am scheduled to be kitchen "slave" for my wife as we prepare canapés on Christmas Day. I suppose we should be grateful we didn't get the heavy shift helping with the turkey.

So once again, I can only dream of a crisp, Christmassy south London - and then return to the canapé production line.

* London's packed restaurants haven't looked to me like they're suffering from the recession. Indeed, they're still indulging in some behaviour that isn't going to endear them to cash-strapped punters. At my desk's office Christmas dinner at a Kensington restaurant last week we were charged for 14 bottles of mineral water we had not ordered, as well as for far too much wine (it was a good night but we really didn't consume 40 bottles between 24 drinkers). They might have made a quick buck - but they've lost this long-time customer.

* I may now have to look elsewhere for videos of Led Zeppelin (below), given that Warner is pulling its artists from YouTube. But the more obscure your tastes, the better the chance that the site will remain a treasure trove. I feel confident that no record company will be ordering the removal of legendary French singer and song writer Georges Brassens. From rare interviews to a moving TV performance of Les Passantes, shortly before his untimely death in 1981 (www.youtube.com/ watch? v=nvmwmuycrDs), Brassens lives on in cyberspace.