As the Bulgarian
proverb puts it, Ziu prbvishnioglik vr ntnynopil- monsgripiye kvk lotnniaposcgur nionutikrgyliober- iZic, which roughly translated means, 'Shop Early for Christmas.' But what should you shop early for Christmas? You can search all the Bulgarian dic- tionaries of quotations till you are blue in the face, but they won't tell you—dictionaries never do. But we at the Spectator are rather more helpful. We tell you to send the Spectator early for Christmas. Though Chriitmas has been icumen in for some weeks now, Christmas shopping is now such hell that most of us feel the sooner it is agoin out again the better for all of us. Yet we must be realistic: sooner or later we must button up our overcoat, brave the elements and charge forth into the crowded misery of Christmas shopping. Or, at least, that was the position till recently. But a large staff of re- searchers has been working on the very problem for ten years trying to discover methods of doing Christ- mas shopping without shifting from an armchair. Their report (to be published as a White Paper in five years' time) reveals two rival solutions. The first is not to do any Christmas shopping whatsoever.
The second method is more constructive, and that isto give the Spectator for Christmas. All you have to do is send a list—absolutely as long as you like— of people to whom you would like it sent for a year at less than half the normal subscription rate (30s. instead of 65s.) and we will send it, beginning with a greeting card telling them who the sensible donor is (All we ask is that they should not be already regular readers of the magazine.) Now, what will they get for the money? They get the finest team of reviewers writing on theatre, films, television and music today: they get news and views of the latest books by an extraordinarily wide- ranging list of authors and reviewers: they get reporting, City news, investment hints, a world- famous consumers' page, political commentaries and cartoons.
But of course the..e is a catch. How can you do your Christmas shopping without stirring from your armchair? Doesn't this mean going out to a pillar- box? Not at all. P. G. Wodehouse said many years ago that he never posts letters: he just throws them, correctly stamped, out of the window and some Good Samaritan inevitably picks them up and dumps them in the nearest pillarbox. Try it and see! As the Bulgarians would put it, Throw Early for Christmas.
To: The Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London, WC1
Please send the Spectator for a year as my gift 10 my friends listed below.
I enclose £ s. d.
I. Name (Please use capital letters throughout) Address 2. Name Address 3. Name Address My name and address are:
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PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS FORM TO RENEW CURRENT SUBSCRIPTIONS
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