Do you know who visited you after you were born? Apparently, I was visited by [my father, my grandmother, a man called Dennis and a lady, Ann, who I grew up calling Aunty Ann, but who wasn’t my real aunt]. In other words, my birth was so significant that I was visited by members of my family [and friends of my parents.] But, as far as I am aware, Queen Elizabeth II was not even informed that I had entered the world. The professors of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale Universities didn’t pack their bags and come racing to the hospital to peer over the side of my cot. Once I got home, at no stage did the Prime Minister or the US President knock on the door and ask my parents if they could give me some presents. Of course they didn’t. It would have been ridiculous for them to do so. The powerful and the intelligent people [of the day] would have been crazy to have dropped everything, cleared their diaries, and come to see me so that they could get on their knees and worship me. But that’s exactly what these “wise men” did in around 0.AD.

Adapted from Carl Laferton, Christmas Uncut, 2015, The Good Book Company, p.31-32