An Alternative Christmas Carol — Robert Cubitt

When Charles Dickens wrote his morality tale, A Christmas Carol, he couldn't know about the banking crisis, fat cat bankers with six figure bonuses or the selling off of state owned assets at knock down prices, so I've had to take his story of misanthropy and redemption and update it a little bit.

Ebenezer Smooge is a banker who worships money and luxuriates in the possessions that his wealth brings. He corrupts all he touches and will never do a good deed if a bad deed can be done. His hapless clerk Scratchit ekes out a living working long hours for poor while his wife Elisa makes end meet by supplementing her income with a bit of “curtain making” on the side, just so her twelve children will be fed.

As in the original, on Christmas Eve Ebenezer is visited first by the ghost of his dead partner, Jacob Harley, and then by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. Heeding the messages of these three shades Smooge wakes up on Christmas morning and sets out to enjoy the day along with everyone else.

Does Smooge change his ways? Can a leopard change its spots? Read An Alternative Christmas Carol to find out.