Leapy Lee - chart topping singer of the 1960s and 70s

Every week I write and article for the Euro Weekly News, an English-speaking newspaper covering all the major resorts of Spain and the Balearics. You can pick up a copy on a Thursday ... or read it here every week.

Thursday 21 December 2006

So here it is, merry Christmas to all and every one of you. Thanks for all your wonderful emails, both for and 'agin'. The sheer diversity of opinions that descend on this ol' boy over the year brings cheer to my heart. Keep 'em coming m'doves, therapeutic 'ennit? Which actually doesn't bring me neatly into anything except a bit of plagiarism. It's this email I've received about Santa and his authenticity, which I shall now quote.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels eats to west. With 91.8 million homes to visit this works out at 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household Santa has 1/1000 th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, get back up the chimney, into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household, a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting stops to do what each of us must do every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc. This means that Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (2lbs) the sleigh is carrying 321.300 tons, not counting Santa. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300lbs. Even granting that 'flying reindeer' could pull ten times the normal amount, we need 214,200 reindeer to complete the job. This increases the payload, not even counting the weight of the sleigh, to 350,430 tones. Again, for comparison, this is 4 times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance, this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as space crafts re-entering the earths atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer will absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic boom in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa meanwhile will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

In conclusion, if Santa ever DID deliver presents on Christmas Eve - he is now dead!

Unquote.

Oh ye of little faith. Do you not realize that Santa and his trusty steeds can move at the speed of light? When one can achieve this phenomenon it is possible to traverse the barriers of time. If Santa felt the need he could actually return to the North Pole and watch himself take off. I have on good authority that he has in fact completed most of his mission, and that most of us have already had our presents delivered, we simply don't know it yet.

Don't believe in Santa? Just look into the eyes of a child. Feel the pure innocent energy of love and excitement that flows from their very psyche toward this most beloved saint of all. Then multiply it by millions.

Then tell me you don't believe in Santa Claus.

Once again. A multitude of good wishes to you all. Have a wonderful Yuletide. Remember whose birthday we're celebrating, and whatever ya do.

Always keep the faith.

Love Leapy

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