In last week’s Takimag, the good doctor penned a piece on battling flies with the latest ‘eco-friendly’ flypaper in his French country house.

We would like to wish all of our readers and fans of Theodore Dalrymple a peaceful, joyous, and blessed Christmas.

Naturally, I am not in favor of companies behaving immorally, for example by unmercifully exploiting people or by carelessly polluting the area round their own factories, but I wish we could sometimes have a rest from the epidemic of high-mindedness that afflicts our times and which, by reaction, introduces wicked thoughts into our minds.