Jeanne’s Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

This was a pretty awful year in terms of international incidents that makes one doubts humanity’s fitness for survival, but in personal terms things were grand, fine, fit for purpose. As with every year, an envelope of cash is always welcome and suggests incredible empathy as opposed to a lack of imagination. If you feel the need to actually fill a stocking, I wouldn’t mind the following.

A Barbour Jacket
I’m a big fan of Sloane style, the 1980s southern England aesthetic that suggested Daddy worked in the city and would be directly responsible for the most recent global economic crash. I think the fact you can credit your dry ends and propensity for excess peach blush – what’s contouring? – on a time and geographically specific trend made famous by novelist Jilly Cooper is just splendid. I was committed to buying a pair of over-the-knee boots with some World Cup winnings but the fact I don’t look as tall as 5?7? suggests meant the whole ?Yes, I own stables? look was not for me. I spent a lot of October wondering how I’d get my underworked hands on a pair of jodhpurs that weren’t jodhpurs and eventually settled on these panelled leggings from M&S. They’re working out quite well and are structured where they should be. You know what I mean.
A Barbour jacket would complete my life goal to look like the type of woman Cooper’s famous romantic anti-hero and champion equestrian, Rupert Campbell-Black, would simultaneously satisfy and disappoint.

Lynn Barber’s latest biography
My favourite heroines are those who do persevere and aren’t necessary polite while doing so. I blame my relishing of rudeness on the convent education. Every year at assembly one family of sisters were always praised by the principal for their impeccable manners and every year I’d dislike them a little bit more.
Lynn Barber is a journalist and regarded as one of the best interviewers in the business. Her first memoir was made into a movie starring Carey Mulligan. An Education documented how Barber became engaged as a teenager and nearly didn’t pursue the college education that would later lead to her being feared as the ?Demon Barber? of Fleet Street for her probing questions and unwillingness to simper in the face of celebrity. Her second memoir, A Curious Career, focuses on the next chapter of her life and how she went from interviewing perverts for Penthouse to being one of the most sought after bylines in the United Kingdom. Part career manual, part celebrity bitchfest, this should be the perfect escape for when the family start arguing about Sinn F?in at around 5pm on Christmas day.

& Other Stories nail trio
Although rumours are rife that H&M’s cool older sister, the capsule store & Other Stories, will arrive in Dublin next year, that still means 2014 is bereft of the bricks and mortar shop on these shores. While we wait for an official announcement you, Santa, can take advantage of the fact delivery to Ireland is offered and that this ‘salt and pepper? nail trio is already in my basket.

Taylor Swift tickets
The singer will be playing Ireland next June for one date only and considering I learned all the lyrics to Out of the Woods in an evening this would make me very happy.

Thanking you Santa.

Follow Jeanne Sutton on Twitter @jeannedesutun