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There are no optimistic contrasts in mood to Scrooge’s stubborn humbuggery.

Of course, the scouse Spielberg could legitimately argue that such “bah humbuggery” is ridiculously over the top as it’s not every day you get to capture your part in such a special and rare occasion on film, but even the crushingly mundane has become apparently essential viewing.

The Jackassonian Democrat, as the college kids called their version, featured white-hooded figures holding flaming crosses on the masthead and page after page of ersatz local gossip and rural humbuggery.

Finally, I loved Laura Bennett’s in-detail look at whether Jonathan Franzen’s latest sex scenes are a bunch of humbuggery, even if I fiercely disagreed with some of her assessments.

“The humbuggery of the article,” he wrote, “was entirely lost.”