Mayor Boris Johnson has written to the King of Norway telling him not to bother with sending a tree for Trafalgar Square this year "now we've got the Shard".
"I don't want to sound ungrateful but frankly we've quite enough Christmas trees of our own and if we wanted one for the Square we could probably nip out and get one from a Berni Inn car park any Saturday up til Christmas," the Mayor writes.
"On the other hand, the mighty Shard is jolly unique and visible from pretty much everywhere across London, except, outlandishly, when you're standing next to it, as I found out to my cost the other day when I asked a taxi driver to ruddy well take me there, which he proceeded to do," continues the letter to the Scandinavian Monarch.
"This year we're going to hang some great big, I mean giant, enormous great baubles from it, hey presto there you go, Christmas wrapped up, as they say, right across the Capital."
The letter ends, "I know you still feel bad about the war and all of that, so if you do want to keep on showing some eternal gratitude year after year, could we possibly have a 90ft fairy to go on top? Could you manage that? Send it flat-packed if you like. Oh no, that's the Swedish."
"You're welcome to pop over and take a gander, whenever you wish - but if you've got a telescope you can probably see it from Oslo."
