LOCKEROOM:I present a series of helpful thoughts and let you decide (in terms of the joy of giving) precisely which gifts to me would give you the most joy

DEAR SANTA Claus, 2010 has been an odd old year, to say the least of it, so apologies for not getting this off to you a little sooner.

You know, I wouldn’t have to be bothering you at all if I could count cards in casinos as well as I can remember the various telephone numbers the credit card spooks use when they are trying to get in touch with me.

Seriously Clausie, is there anything more satisfying than seeing a strange number come up on the mobile, looking at it through narrowed eyes and then cautiously letting it ring out, before dialling 171 to hear the message? This is Betty Torquemada from the credit card company. I am in the office from nine this morning till nine this evening. Please give me a call about your account.

Yes! Score! High five the cat. My life ain’t sad. It’s a white-knuckle ride.

Hello? My account is in intensive care, Betty. You don’t want it to die, Betty. I don’t want it to die. What are we going to chat about? Grrrr.

Anyway, between the gout and the credit card company, I’ve been pretty much wrapped up in myself this past while, so again sorry about the lateness of this epistle, which is basically a begging letter. (Coarse and undignified, I know, but I’m certain you’ve seen worse. You did email me that cringey one John Delaney sent you last year about the 33rd team thing, remember? Now he wants you to buy a Premium Level Box? Ho Ho Ho.)

Listen, I understand fully if you are too busy answering queries from Nama about previous seasonal giveaways, and you’ll concede that, like the banks, it is a little hard to figure out precisely how you operate. But that’s not my beeswax, is it?

I’m not going to let this letter develop into a big long list of things which I am demanding, I have learned from my mistakes in that regard (what happens at the office Christmas do stays at the office Christmas do, okay?). Rather I will present a series of helpful thoughts and let you decide (in terms of the joy of giving) precisely which gifts to me would give you the most joy.

Should you feel the need to overwhelm and embarrass me by getting me everything, I won’t make a fuss. I’m sure things will even out over the years.

First, I have heard nothing but good things about Justin McCarthy’s account of the season gone by, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was a difficult season for hurling in Limerick, but fair play to Justin for finding a few underage lads who would line out. Mol an oige, etc.

Similarly, I enjoyed Mike Mac’s bruising account of life as a survivalist trying to train a hurling team made up entirely of wusses and soft-boys. Still, in a man as experienced in bush craft as Mike Mac, I thought it careless to mix up the Rule of Threes. As Mike says with the benefit of hindsight:

1. Humans cannot survive more than three hours exposed to extremely low temperatures.

2. Humans cannot survive more than three days without water.

3. Humans cannot survive more than three weeks without food.

To think a corner forward could last three days in extremely low temperatures in Crusheen was, in retrospect, a silly error, especially when you factor in the abuse from lads passing in cars.

I must admit, too, that I am a little baffled by the extract in which Mike Mac described drawing the panel around and then biting the head off a chicken and letting the body run around in a demonstration of the more confused aspects of Clare’s forward play. Was it actually a chicken? It wasn’t a wing forward, was it? You serious?

You will have heard of that unpleasant incident last year when Giovanni Trapattoni asked me to offer up the Sports Editor in a bloody sacrifice or else he would make me watch Ireland’s friendly games. I still wake up screaming at how long it took to run the Sports Editor through that rusty cheese grater. He could have been nicer about it though: I was between a rock and a hard place.

Anyway, a new cheese grater would be nice. There’s talk of me having to cover Leinster rugby.

I know that to some people Leeds are “just” a high-flying and charismatic League One side, but the unprecedented decision to bow to public demand and let the SuperWhites play in this year’s Champions League has created a little bit of history, and I would like in the quarter-final and semi-final stages next spring to see the lads in action. We Leeds fans find the Lonely Planet guides most helpful when in otherwise deserted foreign cities. The museum areas and the opera houses are seldom near the grounds, after all.

I appreciate Elin’s endorsement deal with Nike for those clubs that let you beat Tiger every time has been a landmark success, but those county jerseys that let you beat the Dublin footballers every time? Do they have to be available in 31 colours? I love us being a big-four hurling county, but a break would be nice for the poor oul footballers.

I know there is nothing you can do now about England having won this year’s World Cup, a competition which was ours for the taking were it not for the feelthy foreign cheating hands of Thierry Henry, but could some sort of asterisk not be inserted in all record books? The footnotes of soccer history must be seen to detail our suffering as a nation, the cos ar bolg of endless tyranny.

Delaney’s idea for a tasteful and dignified National Handball Memorial is welcome, but Santa, stricter laws for those who deny the handball ever happened or for those who play down the impact of the handball upon our race would be welcome. Handball Deniers are a continuing hurt to our people.

I know that, typically, many of these suggestions and pensees are for the benefit of others. So could you give Anthony Daly my phone number? I’m sure he was joking when he said that even if the championship came after a long nuclear winter and I was the only option left for a “burly” full forward. There I go again. This comeback. It’s not for me. It’s for Dublin hurling I want it. For the children.

Could you give Roy Keane serenity in his new job with Sporting Fingal? House prices out our side of the city have been hit badly enough without living beside Three Mile Island.

Could you bring peace to the family of little Ken Doherty? They need to know where he disappeared to. They need closure.

Make everything hunky dory again for Bernard Dunne; this voodoo doll thing he has with the Dublin footballers is unhealthy. He gets hit, they fall down too. Not right.

Please put an end to GAA managers writing books that will be “helpful and inspirational” for leaders in the business community. The leaders of our business community should have nothing more helpful and inspirational written for them than their plea bargains.

Please let Nama give out acres and acres of land assets to sports clubs. What we are doing to future generations in terms of their sport and their health and their community is criminal. It might offset it a little.

There I go again thinking of others. Gotta go. Not a word out of you about the botox selection box, ya hear? Was it really meant for Dunphy?

Gwan! I’ll let you go.