2017 is already showing great promise as a dreadful, awful parody of a year following a shootout between police officers possibly disguised as Santa Claus and gunmen disguised as Santa Claus in Turkey.
At least one man dressed as Santa Claus, and we're not even remotely kidding, entered a nightclub in Istanbul and shot at least 75 people celebrating New Year's Day killing at least 35.
According to reports police in Istanbul had deployed 17,000 police officers in the capital, many disguised as Santa Claus.
This follows a godawful year for Turkey after Erdogan used a coup as an excuse to roundup and detain 40,000 people including almost every academic in the country, the Russian Ambassador was murdered by a police officer and hundreds have been killed in bomb attacks across the country.
We fully expect there to be a huge storm on Twitter and Facebook about this being an attack on the West. Well Saint Nick was the Bishop of Myra in Lycia in the Byzantine Empire, Turkey.
Our thoughts are with the people of Turkey and the families of the dead at this awful time.
