The seasonal drinks parties are well underway, and usual diets have begun to give way to the chocolate and cheese staples of the festive calendar. But there were still enough sore heads at City desks to react to this week's corporate announcements, which were a mixture of the mundane and the serious.
In the latter category, Cambian (CMBN) has been featured in a TV documentary for all the wrong reasons, after an undercover reporter went to work at one of its specialist residential schools. Read our healthcare writer Megan Boxall's report on what has been going on and what it means for the investment case here.
Another company over which much ink has been spilled in recent years, for a series of unfortunate and at times tragic events, has been platinum miner Lonmin (LMI). Its share price has flat-lined since labour relations and platinum prices deteriorated, but residual value has been boosted by an approach from fellow South African precious metals miner Sibanye-Stillwater (SA:SGL). Read our commodities specialist Alex Newman's update here.
Your humble correspondent was in a Sports Direct (SPD) store earlier this week to buy a Christmas present (yep...) and witnessed its security guard telling a customer not to bounce a football off the floor. The shopper looked to be testing the air, an innocent act, one might think.
Little did I know at the time, but it was in fact a pathetic fallacy prefacing the movement in Sports Direct's share price on the release of its half-year results. Our retail correspondent Harriet Russell raised an eyebrow at the slide in the price on the day, before it snapped back almost to parity. Read her settled analysis here.
Elsewhere, the consumer squeeze from imported inflation remains a factor at home, but it is nothing compared to the squeeze in Nigeria since the decline in the oil price in mid-2014. PZ Cussons (PZC) has a foot in both markets, which has meant a tough couple of years for analyst forecasts. Those profits remain highly rated in the market, though. Click here for our analysis.
Plenty more below. Don't miss our festive double issue, out today, 104 pages of news, analysis and commentary.
