A present from Mr Feng Shui, probably someone I've dropped from my Christmas card list

My experience, early in December, with the purported St Nicholas the present bringer made me resolve to sleep through Christmas.

I did, but woke a few days later to find a curious book stuffed into a sock, just outside the entrance to my cave.

Gooney and Bhiksu do not read; they appear only to provide scale.

Since I had also received a voluminous cookbook with promising recipes that I wanted to test (having received a large shipment of imported rodent meat for the holidays), I threw Mr Shui's book onto the comfortable pile of rubble at the back of my cave.

While lying there half-conscious just this afternoon, I began idly turning the pages with my foot.

I am not sure what I have learned, except that Mr Shui is very bossy.

Here is the kind of thing he is apt to say:

If you want the support of your superiors and colleagues, always sit with the wall behind you. Even better, hang up a picture of the Himalayas behind your back.
Look for the three-legged frog in the supermarket. Display it for luck, but don't let it look at the door.
Do not plant a thorn bush outside your cave. Avoid cactus plants and their killing energies.
If you use a litter box {and some do!}, trace a wavy line across the sand to allow good luck to flow slowly to your posterior.


OK, I made up the last one. But this is very much the style adopted by FS. Does this suggest, as M Salaud le Marché Boursier was suggesting to me only the other day, 'un retour au mouvement littéraire et culturel de l'absurde'?