The Queen of Australia has used her annual Christmas message to call for tolerance of British people around the world. “I know we can sometimes be regarded as nothing but whinging Poms, shit cricketers and soccer hooligans,” said Queen Elizabeth II.

“But let’s face it, most of you were living in savagery before we arrived, bringing with us civilization and all the attendant diseases that helped to weed out the weaker genetic stock from your native populations.”

Jesus Christ, meanwhile, used festivities in heaven to call for Christmas to be moved to a date other than his birthday.

“Do you know what a bummer it is having your birthday on the same day as Christmas?” said the Messiah. “People say ‘Oh we’ll just get you the one present to cover both’ so you’re missing out every year. I reckon I’m owed 2000 years worth of stuff over this.”

A man, 42, who lives with his parents in Launceston said they once again failed to give him a Commodore 64 computer for Christmas.

“I have been asking for one since the mid-’80s but at the time they said it was too expensive even though it was only $499 from memory,” he said.

“Now they reckon it’s an outdated machine but I’ve considered modern computers and I still reckon the 64 suits my needs the best. You can just hook it up to your telly, the tape deck only takes 15 minutes or so to load up a game, and the lack of an internet connection protects it from viruses,” he said. “I am also hopeful that having access to a large library of games might help me to make some friends.”

On Christmas Eve, schizophrenic driver behaviour was witnessed on inner Brisbane roads, where drivers in busy traffic alternated between mouthing obscenities at other motorists and then giving a friendly wave while letting other vehicles merge in from side roads. Falcon driver Helen Gleich said she let someone in a purple Datsun merge “because it’s the spirit of the season and that and stuff”.

In Edmonton, Canada, an immigrant family’s first North American Christmas dinner was almost ruined by a dollar-store meat cooking thermometer that was inaccurate by about 20 degrees. Doran Ivanov, a new Canadian from Ukraine, had to make a dash to a major retail chain for an accurate device.

“But this is not before we burn living shit out of ham like Chernobyl. Lucky we try out temperature thingy on ham before turkey,” he said.

According to North American culinary tradition, Christmas is ruined unless the internal temperature of the turkey or leg of ham can be exactly determined.

Mr Ivanov’s 12-pound turkey went down fighting, its weight creating a hole in the disposable aluminium baking tray the family had bought, also at a dollar store. Fat dripped onto the oven element, sparking a minor fire that caused large quantities of smoke but no lasting damage to the domicile.

“Turkey still taste good, little bit smoky. We have learning something from this experience, for sure, and will be coming back better and bigger next year with more sturdy baking apparatus,” said Mr Ivanov.

Back in Australia, a Nooriootpa office worker said his bid to stay inebriated from Christmas Eve until the New Year was dealt a setback when the boss served a non-alcoholic wine substitute at the staff Christmas break-up.

Michael Sprag said: “Luckily me mate Darren ‘Darky’ Brown had some stubbies out in the ute and even though they were hot I was able to top up me blood-alcohol before I got too sober.”

His employer, Neil Flegg, condemned Sprag’s drunkenness but said he would keep him on staff due to a shortage of skilled word processing clerks in Nooriootpa. “Yeah he’s doing his work half-cut but that’s why you have a spell checker,” said Flegg.’