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There is, for example, a couple near us in north London who have a Christmas tree, with all the trimmings, on display in the living room window before the end of November. We suggested to them once that they could save themselves a lot of trouble by simply leaving it up all year round, but they weren’t impressed.

For me Christmas only really starts when I attend a nativity play at a primary school. Of course I’ve just about got a grip on the plot by now. Even so, it’s remarkable how many variations there are on a theme. The number of possibilities for combining a mother, a father, some shepherds and three wise men seems almost endless.

Teachers, of course, use all their remarkable imaginative and organisational skills to make sure everyone has a role to be proud of. They say extraordinary things like, “Dean, you’d make a terrific sheep.” And Dean and thousands of others believe them.

My favourite primary-school nativity play - the one in which Darren shot to stardom - took place some years ago. The play was warming up nicely. The hall was crammed with parents sitting on infant-size chairs; some of them were already weeping, as you inevitably do when your own loved one says the precious handful of words that have been rehearsed and rehearsed over the previous days.

Mary, who was more than a foot taller than the rather shy Joseph, entered stage left dragging her reluctant husband behind her. She looked radiant in her long flowing white dress and a shawl made from a long piece of curtain material. It kept flopping down over her eyes so that she walked into, rather than met, the surly innkeeper.

She asked if he had a room available and pointed at the cushion under her dress. “You must be joking,” he replied, wincing as she trod on his foot. Then came the climax of the performance. With the head- teacher - inevitably - filling in at the piano, the infants began to sing “Once in Royal David’s City.”. They were magnificent. They sang each line with all their hearts.

The headteacher, ever-sensitive to the choir’s need to breathe in more air, and also desperately searching for the next chord, paused at the end of each line. All went well through the first verse: “Once in Royal David’s City [deep intake of breath]Stood a lowly cattle shed [deep intake of breath]” . . . and so on Then the second verse began. In the silence following the first line a profound philosophical insight occurred to Darren standing in the back row. He decided to share this thought with the rest of us. The choir sang: “He came down to earth from heaven.”

and Darren explained in a loud voice: “Which he can’t really do.” The audience dissolved.

Darren may well go on to study theology but I doubt very much if he will ever make his point more succinctly. It was the perfect sound bite. What Darren won’t have realised at the time, though he may have done by now, is that his five-word assault on Christian fundamentalism also provides the perfect antidote to hyperbolic political rhetoric. As the politician reaches the climactic sections of a speech all you have to do mentally is apply, as though in bracket, Darren’s five words.

Indeed, in political theory the phrase, “Which she can’t really do”, has become known as “Darren’s Parentheses”. They apply particularly when politicians set either impossible or absurd objectives. When, for example, in February 1987 Kenneth Baker announced that there would be tests at ages 7, 11 and 14 in all national curriculum subjects, instead of panicking we should simply have applied Darren’s Parentheses and relaxed. It was an impossible goal and, we know now, it never happened.

When he suggested that at 16 young people, should be examined in all 10 national curriculum subjects and that the new GCSE grading system should be absorbed within the even newer national curriculum levels, again we should simply have applied Darren’s Parentheses. It was absurd and it, too, never happened.

Darren’s Parentheses sometimes also apply in circumstances where the goal set is neither impossible nor absurd, but where it can only be achieved with the active co-operation of others.

Chief inspector Chris Woodhead, for example, has spent much of the past 18 months urging a re-think of primary practice, particularly at key stage 2. Lots of people don’t agree with him but few believe the goal is absurd. Instead of becoming outraged, primary teachers should simply remember Darren. Chris Woodhead himself accepts this: in his Royal Society of Arts speech early in 1995 his argument was that only the profession could bring about the changes he was advocating. In effect he applied Darren’s Parentheses before they had been invented.

There is an important debate to be had about teaching, and learning, not only at key stage 2. Information technology, for example, has profound implications for both. The ever more ambitious objectives we set ourselves in terms of standards also demand that we constantly review all aspects of our practice. The way we do things now cannot be assumed to be ideal in changed circumstances, whether or not it once was ideal.

Chris Woodhead and others will no doubt continue to contribute to this debate. In 1996, however, I would like to see it being led from within the profession by people to whom Darren’s Parentheses do not apply. That means teachers. It is surely time for the teaching profession itself to become the leading advocate of change in teaching and learning.

Before that one more thought to which Darren’s counter-parentheses apply.

We all need to enjoy a good holiday (which we can really do).