I’m a terror for conspiracy theories. I think it’s the journalist in me.

When I went to college we learnt the techniques of Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they inched their way towards a scandalous truth hidden by some very powerful people.

Woodward and Bernstein were scrupulous in the way they handled an attempt from the very top to cover up the truth: that illegal surveillance was being carried out on a wide scale: and that a group of burglars had been paid to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to further that cause.

And indeed, that the orders were sanctioned by the President of the United States of America.

They had an anonymous contact feeding them hints straight from the heart of the whole business. But their job was to take copious shorthand notes, analyse what they had and what they did not have, and inch, day by day, towards the incredible and the treacherous. And expose it to the glaring light of truth.

Needless to say, they are iconic to all journalists. Indeed to all of us. And once a president has been found to be heading a conspiracy it makes one rather suspicious about events which seem a little out of whack.

With one Christmas Day bound, worthy of Santa and his reindeer, we can travel back 417 years to a bar-room brawl in Deptford. Christopher Marlowe was in a very sticky situation.

He had been accused of some very nasty things by a former colleague in the world of espionage, Richard Baines. The two had fallen out while undercover in Holland. If Marlowe were found guilty, hanging, drawing and quartering were on the cards. Or possibly, being boiled alive.

But before the charges could be brought his life was taken prematurely. There was a problem over the bill, you see: and these things can get heated in any restaurant, as any one of us can testify.

It concluded with a rather nasty stabbing. Ingram Frizer dealt a fatal blow right through the eye. And Marlowe was no more.

There, it would end, if the conspiracy theorists were not so sceptical.

Because there are those who question whether Marlowe really did die, that day in Deptford. Marlowe had powerful friends. When the warrant or arrest was issued, he was found to be staying at the estate of Thomas Walsingham, the head of the English Secret Service, and one of Elizabeth’s right hand men.

The plot thickens as we learn that the bar in which the stabbing occurred belonged to a certain Eleanor Bull, who had close connections to Queen Elizabeth’s treasurer Lord Burghley, a patron of Marlowe’s in the spy set.

Then there were the other brawlers: all working for the same spymasters as Marlowe. His alleged murderer Fritzer was pardoned by the queen just a month after the writer’s death: and returned to work for one of Marlowe’s close circle of friends.

If Marlowe’s life did not end that day, there are plenty who will volunteer an alternative scenario.

Because two weeks after Marlowe was killed in that brawl, an epic poem appears in the Stationers’ Register- a record of publishers’ rights to print writers’ work – on June 12, 1593, by a name no-one has heard attached to a writer before: William Shakespeare.

It is called Venus and Adonis. But the man whose name it carries had a paltry grammar school education. The breadth of classical references, of scholarly allusions, in this and the body of Shakespeare’s work would require knowledge of many languages including Latin, and a far more elevated beginning than the man from Stratford could have aspired to.

And listen to a stanza from the poem:

The living, not the dead can envy bite,

For after death all men receive their right.

Then though death rakes my bones in funeral fire,

I’ll live, and as he pulls me down mount higher

Curiouser and curiouser. I wonder if we will ever know for sure.

This Christmas Eve, though, I have crossed over to the other side. No longer the probing truth finder, I conspire to perpetuate one of the greatest conspiracy theories of all time.
My mother-in-law took me aside a few weeks ago. “Tell me”, she enquired, “Do Maddie and Felix still believe in Father Christmas?”
I ummed and ahhed, and concluded Maddie might- but her capacity for metaphorical thinking is such that this is not a problem. And
Felix? Felix definitely still did. Categorically, yes.

But my mother-in-law had overheard a conversation between Felix and one of the Princesses. Felix’s close friend and football confidante had
sown seeds of doubt. His friend is a pragmatic chap, and he drew the conclusion that Father Christmas is not the all-powerful present giver some would have little children believe.

As far as Felix was concerned, the jury was out.

I have left it, and talked the Santa Claus talk with the passion of a zealot for a fortnight. And on Christmas Eve, we hung up our stockings.

My knight-on- a -white-charger has appeared, on this occasion, from arather unexpected source: North American Aerospace
Defence Command (NORAD).

Because they have proved the existence, once and for all, of Santa Claus.

Cleverly, they have used satellite technology, encouraging the great man himself to carry a tracking device along with all the presents in his slightly overburdened sleigh.

Or perhaps Rudolf carries it somewhere on his person. No matter. The point is, you go to NORAD’s site and you can watch Santa delivering his presents anywhere in the world.

He really has it down to an art, after 1730 years of practice. He travels at a speed similar to Concorde’s, and when he stops at alocation you see these comet-like streaks of light as elves strut their stuff the way only Christmas elves can do. There is even a counter for the number of presents delivered.

It is priceless intelligence, and just the conclusive evidence a mother needs at a time like this.

And so, with a mother’s heartfelt thanks, I celebrate the information super-highway.

Those satellites, winging their way around the earth with relentless regularity, have spread comfort and joy, and a healthy dose of credibility, during this festive season.

The man in red and white has kept his stripes.