Any attempt I make to buy clothes at this time of year tends to be scuppered by the December sales season. As if shopping wasn't already a tragic, unpleasant event, marred by the sheer number of people on London's streets, the shops now make the experience reminiscent of hell by making clothes shops, our last bastion of peace on a Saturday afternoon Oxford Street as bad as everywhere else. I have not been been shopping this year and I intend to buy the meagre five presents that I owe to people I love after work sometime in the next seven days. The notion of spending my weekend in the shops at this time of year is one that I am rejecting more actively as I get older, usually I like clothes shops even when they're full of people but the clothes shops trot out the most gruesome elements of their stock for every sucker in the country in December. Shoe shops, specifically Office are the worst, they don't seem to have sales, they appear to make a line of horrific shoes that don't fit properly to sell to people at cheap prices. Have you ever tried buying sexy, appealing shoes that fit okay with size 8 feet? It's not fun, it's stressful, competitive and tiring and I don't do it anymore. If I could abolish one single thing it would be the December sales, save it until January and let us buy what we need in peace when we can't avoid shopping.