Grey rain slants down over the brown heather of the Lochaber hills, falling relentlessly into Loch Linnhe, and drenching the Caledonian Sleeper idling beneath my window on the platform at Fort William. November is technically still autumn, but already the long evenings of British Summer Time seem to belong to a different world.

Pleasant as it is to wrap up in a coat, to feel invigorated by stepping out into a chill, or delighted by returning to the warmth within, the dying year is no cause for celebration. Christmas, the adopted pagan festival, is like Halloween – not put there because the days are joyous, but so we can thumb our nose at the downcast season.

Defiance is the right attitude. Seasonal affective disorder, that modern habit of turning melancholy into psychiatric illness, is b

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