So long ago.  So much has changed. So many blossoms have flowed under the bridge since then.  I have suffered much and have  learned much.

It shames me further to confess that I am no longer a fully fledged Ninja (Junior Class, Order of the Shape of the Pear). I am now a lowly Adept once more, and this only thanks to the mercy of Master Hamzo. Without his intercession, my skin would be a fur rug in the Order’s library and my genitals would have been sold to aphrodisiac manufacturers.

I have brought disgrace on myself and the Order by committing the only act deemed unacceptable for a ninja. I got caught.

As for my long silence on this and other matters, let me put it this way: it’s not easy being a panda in prison. Especially not a pretty one…

True, no money has been forthcoming. And, come to think of it, I have never met my agent face-to-face. She has, however, instructed me to wear lady’s underwear and to grab the private parts of any senior member of the order I encounter. I note that Brother Niguri is suspiciously cheerful at the moment. Hmmmmm.

The grabbing, coupled with my lack of earning through assassination “because I am a literary genius” has caused Honoured Master Toro, the dojo’s Finance Director, to start dropping hints about selling my genitals again.

Before Christmas, I was sent on a secret mission by Master Toro, the dojo’s Finance Director. He told me only I could pull it off. I was to lie in wait outside a certain business watching for one individual – for weeks if necessary. I was given a brief description of the target and told to kill on sight. Such was the sensitivity of the mission that it would require special concealment measures.
As Master Toro had only very briefly briefed me, I asked him for more details, to which
he replied: “Ninjas who would be worth more to the Order as a bucket of
ingredients for traditional medicines should not ask too many questions
when work comes their way.”

So it was that I was dressed, with the help of some adepts, in a disguise that so encumbered me I could barely move and could not see down at all. I was then driven at speed to the location and placed in some kind of hidden bunker. I was not told where so that, if captured, I could not betray the plan. I was told to blend in, to be still, to be silent and to watch for a gaunt Arab with a black beard and a kidney dialysis machine.

I have barely blinked since mid-December, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on the Way of the Ongoing Eye. I have the image of the shop I was watching burned into my retinas. Because I was there during the pre-Christmas rush I also have the sounds of Slade’s Merry Christmas and crying children ringing in my ears. My target did not appear.

Eventually, after dark yesterday, I was relieved by a giggling Brother Niguri. He removed me from my “bunker” and helped me out of my disguise. It was then – and only then – I realised that I, a trained ninja, a feared killer, a being who has transformed himself into a living shuriken, had been hired out to the nearby shopping mall as … Frosty the sodding Snowman for their Christmas grotto.

And, oddly, Osama bin Laden did not pop into our branch of Argos to do his shopping.

However, I miss all the tinsel and the magic, childhood feeling that
Christmas Eve brings, so I suggested traditional British celebrations should be
adopted for our workplace, in accordance with the teachings of the Ninjitsu on
the Way of the Ho Ho Ho.

When asked how British people celebrated the birth of our Saviour, Jesus
Christ, in the context of the workplace, I quickly explained the basic
tenets:

• Eating rat disguised as turkey at £4.90 for three courses.
• Drinking cheap wine then cheap beer, cheap premium lager, cheap gin, cheap vodka,
  cheap Cava, cheap brandy, cheap cider and value whisky. As a sharpener before
  lunch.
• Snorting lines of icing sugar having been told it is finest Bolivian marching
  powder.
• Spontaneous unaccompanied karaoke.
• Photocopying your buttocks.
• Kicking seven shades of festive fun out of the Finance Manager.
• Photocopying the Finance Manager’s buttocks.
• Disappearing under the mistletoe with the office seamonster who no amount of
  crystal meth and tadalafil would normally
  induce you to approach within three miles of.
• Photocopying the office seamonster’s buttocks.
• Vomiting prodigously over the entire board in reverse alphabetical order.
• Breaking into the office and setting fire to your underpants, having forgotten to take them off first.

After some discussion it was decided we should stick with a tree and some
carols. Oh and kicking seven shades of festive fun out of the Finance
Manager.