WHEN IT COMES to surprises, finding out that men hate Christmas shopping is somewhat less earthshaking than learning that the sun rises in the east or that voting is a form of rocket science to a lot of Floridians.

In fact, a British polling organization called MORI tells me, many males would prefer a trip to the dentist rather than go hunting for Yuletide presents. Also it says women spend the longest time shopping for gifts. Next they'll tell me you can't grow redwoods in the basement.

The pollsters must have spent thousands of dollars probing into the business of 2,000 men and women with questions on the intellectual level of who's buried in Grant's Tomb. I would have been delighted to have answered MORI's queries for 10 bucks and given them change in return.

Except that had I been asked, I would have stated the case for men considerably more concisely: As far as Christmas shopping goes, I would rather have my toenails plucked out one by one as I performed a do-it-yourself appendectomy on my innards with a plastic ice cream spoon.

The pollsters seem to have been taken aback at the rather uncharitable view of Christmas as a stressful event, a sort of annual penitentiary riot with all the fun bits removed. Says Ehud Furman, managing director of the Internet shopping site that commissioned the MORI poll:

"We were very surprised to see that (Christmas shopping) was thought to be a more traumatic experience than working, visiting the dentist or looking after a crying baby - things which usually have people pulling their hair out."

I can only surmise that Ehud Furman spends his Christmases on the carbon dioxide ski slopes of the planet Zog. Certainly he has been nowhere near an evening of Yuletide shopping on London's Oxford Street, to which getting caught in a goal line standoff between the Chicago Bears and the San Francisco Giants can be likened to afternoon tea with the Queen.

Were I given a choice between buying Christmas gewgaws or shoveling flies in Hell, my only question would be where to dump the flies.

On the other hand, if it were between spending an afternoon buying everything she wanted for 25 bucks at Harrod's emporium in London's Knightsbridge or going to heaven for eternity and a day, my wife Elizabeth would try to negotiate a compromise.

Take the issue of making out a list of prospective Christmas gifts and shopping for them - something that the MORI poll says takes at least two days for six out of 10 people in Britain. Elizabeth starts her list about four days after the previous Christmas and then hitches a ride with Santa for her inevitable last minute shopping.

But 29 years ago, I spent an hour and 22 minutes one Christmas shopping evening to walk - or to be tidally surged - two blocks along Oxford Street. I swore then (and quite a lot, I might add) that I'd never set foot in downtown London within a 10-week radius of Christmas.

In fact, the only circumstances under which, as long as all my marbles are in place, I would venture outdoors Christmas shopping would be as an alternative to having to dine out at a French restaurant, getting dragooned into babysitting or being hauled off to a Britney Spears concert.

Over the years I've streamlined my technique for dealing with the spirit of Christmas, which is to say, mercantile moneygrubbing. I do all my Yule shopping before the first Santa Claus and reindeer arrive in a department store window, which in London means no later than July 17.

There are some distinct advantages here. There is little incentive for shopkeepers to hike the prices of their wretched pots and pans and washboards and mops by 63 percent, sprinkle glitter dust on them and wish you a Merrie blasted Christmas while ripping you off at the till.

Even in mid-August, most electrical shops are willing to dust off a string of Christmas tree lights lurking in some forgotten corner and sell them to you at a reasonable charge, the time of Christmas extortion being still some days down the road. Replacement bulbs, tinsel and seasonal cards are a bit more difficult to come by.

The problem with Christmas shopping is that it is something that has to be done. In the case of men, according to the MORI people, more than 16 percent of them spend less than an hour buying presents - and some have no time for it at all.

I suggest that like it or not, they do some serious rethinking about this, or be prepared to spend the rest of their life speaking in soprano. Believe me, women and children take these things seriously.

So how about a gift that spares you from having to give a gift? This is a Christmas Gift Exemption Voucher on offer at a website, www.adbusters.org. You can download it and send it to your friends or if you really like sliding down the razor blade of life, your wife or girlfriend.

And if you don't speak English too good, there's a French version of the certificate.

This, it seems, is part of a campaign by a group of environmentalists who think that we no longer shop for what we need but for what we want - "to impress each other, to fill a void, to kill time." And, they say, we should stop.

To promote this exceedingly worthwhile cause, the campaigners are planning to take over empty shops in town centers around Britain with the express purpose of selling nothing during the Christmas rush.

This is the sort of initiative that is long overdue and is to be applauded, preferably when the wife isn't looking.

But I think I would be much more liberal with my applause if the campaigners' website didn't have a page where you can order books and subscriptions and videos and postcards and posters. . .

Thought for the Week: If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

"Notes From A Tangled Webb" is syndicated by: