You have been advised.

In case you are in need of a reminder, here is a list of “festivals”* I will not be celebrating this year or any other year:

• Thanksgiving**
• Hanukkah
• Christmas***
• New Year ****
• Eid
• Diwali
• Vaisakhi
• Navnatri
• Easter
• Whitsuntide
• Trooping the Colour
• Cup Final Day
• The excoriation of St Oswald the Perverse
• Hallowe’en
• Garifuna Settlement Day
• Valentine’s Day
• The birthday of the poet Keats
• Vientianne boat race day
• (that's enough festivals. Ed.)

Here is a list of festivals I will be doing my best to celebrate (and I am doing quite well at the moment in this venture, thank you very much for asking):

• Every day, and its ability to be filled with love, joy and laughter. 

Love and peace.

* i.e. Bloody silly traditions

** Am I thankful? You bet your butt.

*** It is almost December and I haven’t started work on my card yet, so am in a state of abject panic.

**** Yes, there is only one of them, you silly Americans.

Dirty Protest

I was surprised to find an email this morning from someone who, as far as I can recall, I have never met. These are the contents:

If you are married and file a joint tax return, you can contribute to an IRA for your spouse in addition to your own IRA. Contributions may be permitted to either a Traditional IRA or a Roth IRA regardless of whether your spouse earns any income or is eligible to participate in an employer-sponsored plan, such as a 401(k).
 
Generally, individuals who are unemployed are not allowed to contribute to retirement accounts such as IRAs because they do not have eligible compensation. However, there is an exception for individuals with spouses that are employed and meet certain requirements. The employed spouse is allowed to make an IRA contribution on behalf of a non-working spouse or a spouse who has little income. These contributions are referred to as "spousal IRA contributions". Here we review the eligibility requirements for making spousal IRA contributions.

Eligibility Requirements To make a spousal IRA contribution, you must meet the following requirements: 

• You must be married.
• You must file a joint income-tax return.
• You must have compensation or earned income of at least the amount you contribute to your IRAs.

I replied thus:

Thank you, whoever you are, for your rather surprising invitation for me to contribute to the Irish Republic(an) Army.
While I sympathise with some of their aims, and share their disdain of colonial oppression, I am loathe to finance terrorism or violence in any form.
I am surprised you have singled me out for this attention - perhaps you are an undercover CIA operative testing to see whether my lefty tree-hugging credentials are valid. I must confirm that my position is that of pacifism compounded by abject cowardice.
Again, I am obliged for the invitation, but instead I will be investing available funds in a splendid vegetarian meal when I visit Leicester this weekend.
May I reciprocate your unsolicited invitation with some unsolicited advice? 

1) Be circumspect in your choice of political affiliation - eschew nationalists, conservatives, separatists and other loonies - it will all end badly.

2) Check email addresses before you send messages.

love and peace