His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 31

 Door number 31:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 30

 Door number 30:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 29

 Door number 29:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 28

 Door number 28:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 27

 Door number 27:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 26

 As always, the captions don't stop on Christmas Day.

So here's Door number 26:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 25

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Here's Door number 25:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 24

 Door number 24:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 23

 Door number 23:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 22

 Door number 22:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 21

 Door number 21:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 20

 Door number 20:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 19

 Door number 19:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 18

 Door number 18:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 17

 Door number 17:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 16

 Door number 16:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 15

 Door number 15:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 14

 Door number 14:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 13

 Door number 13:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 12

 Door number 12:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 11

 Door number 11:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 10

 Door number 10:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 9

 Door number 9:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 8

 Door number 8:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 7

 Door number 7:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 6

Door number 6:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar – 5

 Door number 5:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar - 4

 Door number 4:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar - 3

Door number 3:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar - 2

Door number 2:

His Dark Materials Advent Calendar - 1

Here we go with this year's caption advent calendar.

Door number 1:

From The Mind of Merc - Hypocrisy

Sometimes I find my mind wandering over various eclectic topics and occasionally I am inspired to write some of them down. Today I was thinking about Hypocrisy.

The Tories various failings to fulfil their duty to run the country (instead evidently preferring to run it into the ground) have led numerous people on numerous occasions to query the correct definition of democracy – which struck me as the Tories providing us with a valuable vocabulary lesson. It also occurred to me that they’re teaching us exceptionally well about another word – hypocrisy.

The most glaring and recent example has to be Boris Johnson’s declaration that bullying will not be tolerated in Whitehall… despite refusing to dismiss Home Secretary Priti Patel when an independent investigation found her guilty of exactly that.

But this is far from the only example. There is also the instance of the Tories on the one hand extolling to the public to do their bit to ‘Save the NHS’ and on the other undermining it, underfunding it, and selling bits of it off. They have since compounded their own duplicity with a parliamentary meeting in which 50 people crammed into a room that was only supposed to hold 29.

And let’s not forget the school meals fiasco with the exorbitant sum of free school meals meaning the government was loath to fund them… despite the fact that it’s equivalent to the amount they spent on  PPE contract for face masks (handed without tender to a wealth advisory firm with links to the Tories) that turned out to be unusable.

So if there’s one thing you can say about this government, it’s that they’re educational. Aren’t we lucky!