Every year I do a Christmas nativity story. This is usually dedicated to an individual who has shown me love, warmth, and friendship; someone who has helped me through the year and brought smiles and laughter to my life. This year I choose the Portfolio Collective. It may be slightly contrived as I haven’t yet had time to fully appreciate your personalities, but if it brings some festive spirit, then it will be worth the effort. (as ever, there is no intention to offend) So here goes:

A long time ago, in a place called ‘America’, there lived a man with a big smile. He was an excitable chap with bundles of energy, and for good reason. The angel of the lord came to see him out of the blue one night. He couldn’t remember if his name was Peter or Malcolm, anyhow, suffice to say he was shiny on top. The Angel told him that if he ‘swiped right’ the good lord would bring him a beautiful wife and after much nocturnal fun they shall have a child, and he shall be called Jesus.

Ben was very confused, and in some respects slightly annoyed by the interruption. After all, it was 4am and he had just started his daily trawl of the 5000 emails waiting in his inbox. Still, if the angel was telling the truth, then perhaps it would be worth the effort. He was becoming tired of the bachelor life, so he set his fingers walking.

It wasn’t long before the good lord had worked his magic and Ben found himself a new bride. Ben looked in the mirror and liked what he saw. Angel or no angel he wasn’t surprised by his lady-pulling prowess. Damn, he was so good looking. How lucky this lady was.

The next night, Malcom descended once again to Earth and instructed Ben that he must return to Blighty.

“America is not the place for you Ben. You must find the small town of South Ken. There you will find a mews and you shall have your new child in the garage.”

Ben was used to dealing with whackos and crazy scenarios, but ‘a baby named Jesus, in a garage in a small town called South Ken’?! He couldn’t work out if those Bosnian artillery shells had done more damage than he cared to realise. Still, I guess Malcolm was right about Risa, so perhaps he heed his words.

Ben wasted no time in Googling:

‘garage South Ken’.

To his surprise Google did respond, but not with the co-ordinates of his future prophecy. No, that would have been a regular search. Ben was savvy, he had the knowledge, ‘Adknowledge in fact’, and it would seem Google had already algorithmicised (I love that word btw) his other worldly powers. Yet again, Ben found he had control at his fingertips! Whoa, first the beautiful lady, now Google. All he had to do was ‘touch and go’.

By now Ben was starting to believe in the Angel and that, perhaps, he did have divine providence.

‘Why would Google want me?’ Ben mused. ‘All I did was search for a garage’.

Still, Ben reconciled his thoughts, turned to the mirror, smiled and thought to himself:

‘Damn I’m cool. This is awesome.’

Buoyed with his new Middas status he headed straight for the Virgin Atlantic business class lounge, and after coiffing a couple of glasses of champa’s, he and Risa set on their biblical journey. Somehow or other, Ben was sure this was his calling to change the world.

He may have felt invincible, but how was he going to explain to Risa that their new baby would have to be born in a garage. Still….

Tune in next time for the next instalment of:

‘The unexpected Xmas story according to Ben Leg’