At least for retailers, the Christmas season starts with the great switching on of the Christmas lights. This ritual is always supposed to be performed by somebody vaguely famous. In most towns and cities, this honour tends to fall to whatever D-list celebrity is starring in this year's Christmas Pantomime. Typically this is some fading glamour model or has-been comedian. In Cambridge this year, somebody noticed the official start of the high-street shopping orgy coincided with the night the UK tour of veteran 70s punks The Damned comes to the city. The ideal sort of people for the job! So they asked Dave Vanian and Captain Sensible to join the mayor and Father Christmas for the great switch-on.

But not everybody seems to think it's such a good idea. Some people are upset.

"It is not appropriate for Christmas," said Reverend Stephen Leeke, of St Martin's Church in Cambridge.

"They are a punk rock band with very doubtful lyrics."

He added that the council had not given much thought to the decision to invite the band - whose songs include Anti Pope.

"They should admit they made a mistake," he said.

Reverend Dr Peter Graves, of Wesley Methodist Church in Cambridge, said: "We should not give a major function over to a group that goes out of its way to deny what Christmas is about. "

Earth calling Reverends Leeke and Graves. All you achieve with statements like this is to make Christians look po-faced and silly. If you knew anything about popular culture or popular music, you would realise that The Damned are about as blasphemous as Spïnal Tap's "Christmas with the Devil".