Not so silent night

KEY POINTS

• A trip to Lapland.
• Christmas rebranding.
• The perils of change.
• Discussions with Santa.

The African sun beat mercilessly on a shuffling grumbling line of passengers sweating in their incongruous snow gear as they waited for what promised to be a fairly lengthy coach transfer.

Embracing the new spirit of economical travel I’d caught the RyanAir Lapland special and had come to appreciate the depth and true meaning of ‘all in it together’.

During the three hours it took to negotiate the ransom on my luggage there was plenty of time to survey my fellow passengers.

As I joined the sad line I inspected those equally as desperate to make the trip at this time of year. Mostly they were the last of the Eastern European migrant workers who had come to help with the...