I know, I know, it’s still five weeks away, but these things take a lot of forethought. My travel arrangements to The Lizard are already made, but the main plans revolve around the parties. As well as the Clearleft bash (mercifully an afternoon thing), I’m going to the BBC Backstage party to catch up with the London folks, then heading to the Open Rights Group party the following week.

Booze aside, this will be my fourth year of opting out of the commerce of Christmas. I find the traditional Christmas whirlpool of money towards the retailers rather distasteful, given the millions of people who actually need it. As a result I’ll be donating rather than spending money on presents, and once I again I ask others to do so on my behalf instead of buying me anything. ORG will be one of my recipients (along with The Wikimedia Foundation and Asthma UK); as it happens they’ve just released their annual report (pdf), which is definitely worth a read.

The fun bit is that I’m committed this year to making little presents for people to make up the gap. Any ideas?