PRESENTS papered, branches baubled and turkey trussed? Or are you, like me, in need of a beekeeper’s suit to ensure you make it through your last- minute Christmas shopping intact – safe from elbow jabs, trodden toes and perfume showers spritzed by over-zealous cosmetics counter operatives in white coats?

I still have gifts to buy, a tree to decorate and cards to post, but I am not letting the prospect of impending queue fatigue and wrapping paper cuts to get me down, oh no, because I have been trusted with some special festive wisdom.

Like a missive from the Oracle, the people at Sky Movies have sent me an email which reveals the secret of clawing back some relaxation time over Christmas.

They have compared the length of a list of popular films to the cooking time of your average turkey, meaning you can, in theory at least, sit back without worrying about a burnt bird.

So, say you’re cooking a 5lb turkey to feed a party of five people, you could choose between The Italian Job, Love Story and Home Alone and still have a few minutes to spare for a comfort break.

A 6lb turkey would give you time for Pretty Woman, and you could get through Jerry Maguire or Zulu while waiting for a seven-pounder to crisp up nicely.

Out of Africa suits 8lb poultry, The Godfather matches a bird weighing 9lb and the 1959 epic Ben-Hur, at a gargantuan 203 minutes, suits those cooking for 10.

Of course, there are fatal flaws in this method of cooking.

Firstly, it relies upon you cooking the turkey well in advance, leaving the roast potatoes, veg and sausages in bacon to be tackled after the credits.

Secondly, Sky has had to supplement its Christmas wisdom with a health warning, recommending that the “turkey timings” method is used “in conjunction with the full cooking instructions given at point of purchase of a turkey”.

However, all this is irrelevant to me as I’m not cooking Christmas dinner.