As the beginning of December sees the UK slip into its annual spate of Christmas madness, characterised by frenetic high street spending, increased alcohol consumption and domestic violence, The Sleaze has secured an exclusive interview with Arthur Ardon, recently dubbed ‘The Man Who Hates Christmas’ by the tabloid press. “I must commend you on your stance on Christmas over the years – your publication has blazed a trail when it comes to exposing the sham that is the so-called ‘Season of goodwill,” the fifty three year old civil servant told us. “Down with Christmas, I say. It’s become a blight on our high streets – and its so bloody repetitive. It’s the same every year, but worse! Can’t we be let off Christmas one year for good behaviour?” To demonstrate some of his grievances, Ardon walked us through his local German Christmas market in Crawley. “I mean, just look at this over-priced tat!” he exclaimed, pointing at a stall festooned with huge sausages. “What have those got to do with Christmas? In fact, what gas Germany got to do with Christmas either? Just because Santa Claus is allegedly German, that’s no excuse! He’s probably a bloody war criminal, anyway. If one good thing comes out of Brexit it will be that these sodding foreign markets stop coming over here trying to shove their heathen Christmases down our throats!”

Ardon shot to tabloid infamy after punching out the conductor of a Salvation Army band playing in his town centre. He told us that the incident occurred after he had been ‘pushed over the edge’ by the stress of trying to shop in the face of the encroaching festive season. “Why, year-after-year, must we be have to contend with crowds of people in the streets whose spending is only dwarfed by their rudeness?” he says. “Then finally you get to the shop only to find what you wanted to buy is not being stocked any more just so they can fit in more of the shite seasonal lines. This is what happened to me the day I slapped that bloody woman!” He remains unrepentant over the incident, claiming provocation. “Look, it should stand as a warning to anybody wishing me an unprovoked Merry Christmas! Besides, it was only a tap, but she went down like she had a glass jaw,” claimed Ardon. “Arguably, it wasn’t my fault at all – if wasn’t meant to have been filled in at that moment, surely there would have been a divine intervention? I ask you, where was her God at that moment? Has he jetted off to warmer climes for the holidays?”

Ardon revealed to us that he hasn’t always been a Christmas hater, admitting that, as a child and adolescent, he enjoyed the season, joyfully participating in its rituals. But, he told us, the lustre began to wear off as he entered adulthood. He argues, however, that it wasn’t so much his growing maturity that led to his disillusionment with Christmas, rather than political factors. “I’m afraid that Christmas was ruined back in the 1980’s by Thatcher and her government,” he opines. “I remember when the union of shop Santa’s came out in support of the miners and were chased down by police on horses and beaten with sticks during an attempt to stop black-leg Santas entering Selfridges’s in Oxford Street.” Ardon claims to have been an eyewitness to these shocking events, which ultimately led to the breaking of the Santas’ union. “I was on a shoping trip to London, when, by chance, I saw all these coppers in full riot gear beating the crap out of these striking Santas with their batons,” he recalls. “It was appalling to see such violence on the streets of our capital. The striking Santas were defenceless – they were trying to protect themselves with sacks full of badly wrapped presents, but it was no good. They were all dragged off to the cells. Of course, the defeat of the Santas’ union paved the way for all those foreign Santas and elves which have flooded our shopping malls and stores since then.”

Returning to the present, Ardon shared his opinion of the modern manifestations of some other Christmas institutions. “Carol singers, why?” he snorts. “They don’t even have the good grace to be able to sing in tune any more which surely should be a problem if you want to be paid, shouldn’t it? But then again have you seen the level of talent on the bloody X Factor? I mean, Simon Cowell, how can you live with yourself? If you had an ounce of decency you would, live on TV, nail your own bollocks onto a wooden table and apologise for peddling such total wank as entertainment for so many years. Not to mention the way the bastard keeps trying to co-opt the Christmas Number One every year for the winner of his abominable TV programme – it’s meant to be for novelty songs which might be shit, but are at least entertaining. Unlike any of the records put out by the contestants on his programme.”

Ardon admits that last Christmas he became so frustrated by the poor quality of local carol singers that he threw a dog excrement at a group of children who called at his house. “It was worth the fine a police caution, I can tell you,” he says. “The little bastards will think twice before knocking on my door and demanding money with menaces in the form a threat to sing carols badly this year!” Disturbingly, the dog excrement hurling isn’t an isolated incident, with Ardon gleefully admitting to indulging in similar types of seasonal ‘mischief’. “Still, despite the terrible state of the modern Christmas, there is still fun to be had,” he chuckled. “I have been furiously masturbating into bottles of rum and sneaking it back into shops labelled as egg nog, for instance. Can you imagine the faces of the bastards who buy it after they drink their first snowball? I tell you, the thought of that warms my heart on these cold Winter evenings!” He claims that he hasn’t confined himself to simply adulterating alcoholic beverages. “I’ve also been doing something lwith my own excrement, cooking chocolate, and some sponge pastry to create a true Yule log,” he confides. “Plum Duff, more like bum fluff now! I’ve already sneaked half a dozen of these onto the shelves of my local Waitrose – someone will be having a truly shitty Christmas! Serves the bastards right!” Ardon is currently on bail for his alleged assault on the Salvation Army conductor and is due to appear in court in January.