Catalogue Cornucopia

Look, no legwork! The insidious magic of shopping by mail and phone

Dearest Kids:

Hot news!

This year Xmas is going to be on the mailman. During the entire holiday stampede, we do not intend to stick one toe out of the house to buy anything. (Well, maybe the odd beaker of Beefeater, says Father.) Has doddering senility finally overtaken your parents? By no means. We have, rather, been enveloped by Efficiency, Luxury and Modernity. We have succumbed to the Mail-Order Catalogue, which in our youth was something that farmers used.

We have, in...

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