In the English autumn of 2009, my wife and I went to see the then up-and-coming comedian Tim Minchin during one of his epic British tours. He obligingly reeled off his usual repertoire of the rude, the funny and the irreverent; and at the end, the audience obligingly cheered wildly and demanded an encore.
So he sat back down at his piano, took a deep breath and began a newly minted song. “I … [pause] … really like Christmas,” it starts.