time is on your side...

It's now been 7 months since I stopped working. Technically, as they paid my notice, I suppose I've only actually been out of work for 4 months... but it all amounts to the same really.

As I've mentioned before, I decided about three months ago that I was actually going to look for a paying job. This wasn't always a given, and it took a bit of time away from the long hours of my last job to start to be able to see things more clearly.

Looking for work is a vaguely depressing activity: you need to give it the attention it deserves if you're really serious about it, but at the same time it all seems frustratingly arbitrary. It's a buyer's market, and although job sites and electronically stored CVs means that it's probably never been easier to apply for a job, lots of these places don't even bother to acknowledge your application, never mind telling you that you've been passed over.

As anyone who has been in this position before will know, you just can't take these thing personally. At the same time, sometimes the process is so arbitrary that you just want to scream. There's never going to be a really fair way of recruiting people, but there are certainly plenty of unfair ways. David Brent famously said that you can avoid employing unlucky people by throwing half of the CVs you receive straight into the bin. I sometimes wonder if that's a fairer process than some of the ones I've recently had the misfortune of being exposed to.  The University of Nottingham was already in my bad books for rejecting me for a job on the basis of a competency based interview they tried to carry out over the phone in 15 minutes with a two person panel on a dodgy line. They went even further down in my estimation when they gave me 8 days notice of an interview with a presentation (which itself was on a subject which had nothing to do with the job, but that's another story). The problem wasn't the relatively short notice, it was that I wasn't available on the day of the interview. As is always the way now, the invitation to interview suggested I contact them if I needed any accommodation. Well, presumably you can shift the date of the interview to a date I can attend? No, came the answer, we can't. Thanks for your interest. What?

Anyway. The search continues. In the meantime, I'm carrying on with voluntary work. I've been acting as a sighted guide for the Guide Dogs MyGuide service, and this has seen me acquire a chap I take out running once a week, and another who I take out for a walk every other week. As well as this, I've been doing my usual volunteering for parkrun and, as of this month, I'm now officially a trustee of a Nottingham-based domestic abuse charity. All together, this little lot takes up around 3 days of my week, more or less. To be honest, I'm not sure how I managed to find the time for a full time job. As I said to the chair of the trustees when he asked me how I would find the time to keep up this level of volunteering when I do manage to find another paying job, you don't have to work 60 hours a week, do you? Towards the end in my last job, 50-60 hour weeks were fairly common. No one was making me do them, but I did them all the same. When I get back into work, I'm going to free up all that extra time by trying to just stick to my contracted hours.

Let's see how that plan stands up to the first contact with the enemy, eh?

I'm also thinking of starting to volunteer at the local Oxfam store. It's not out of the question that I might try to find a part time job that brings in a bit of spending money but leaves me with the freedom to spend my time doing the things that I really find fulfilling.

It's nice to have the flexibility in my life. I don't need to find a paying job at the moment, I'm just choosing to look for one.

Anyway. Happy new year.

2020 already looks like it's going to be a difficult one for the world, but as long as we each try to do our bit, then we have something positive to hang onto, eh?

gifts on the tree...

I've just spent a lovely weekend in the Peak District celebrating a friend's 50th birthday. As part of the festivities, some of us headed over to Chatsworth House to attend the Christmas market and to see the house all dressed up for the festive period.

I was dimly aware that this was 'a thing'. I think it occasionally gets covered on local news when they first get the decorations up each year and I happened to see it once. I would probably have never gone under my own steam, but as part of the birthday weekend and with some friends, it seemed like an agreeable way to spend a few hours before we started drinking again.

I like Christmas, after all.

Well, the first thing to say about this is that it is certainly a fascinating spectacle. Chatsworth House and its grounds are absolutely splendid, of course. The house is beautiful and contains art dating back 4000 years (you have to admire how resolutely the British have pillaged the world over the years, don't you?) and the grounds themselves were designed and landscaped by Capability Brown. It's something well worth visiting in its own right. If it was up to me, I'm not sure that I would necessarily think that picking a theme of "Christmas Around the World" and then dressing each of the rooms accordingly with Christmas trees and the like would really enhance the appeal of the place. Then again, I voted to remain in the European Union, so what do I know?

It's certainly hard to argue that this doesn't appeal to people: there were cars lined up all the way into the grounds, and a shuttle bus taking people in who hadn't thought to pre-book their parking. As we queued up for our 11:30 slot inside the house, the board outside told us that every single 15 minute slot to enter the house was booked up for the whole day. The Christmas market was absolutely booming too, with people queuing up to get some viking drinking horns and scented vegan candles.

I enjoyed my afternoon very much. The tour of the house was fascinating on several levels: it's always a pleasure to look at ancient sculptures and other artwork of varying quality (I have a soft spot for any painting that includes lions, where it's immediately clear that the artist has only got a very passing idea of what a lion actually looks like. There's one ceiling painting here where the artist seems to think that lions have human faces), and some of the wood panelled rooms are absolutely beautiful. However, it has to be said that it was also fascinating watching people in Christmas jumpers ignoring all of this so that they could take pictures of themselves in front of plastic Christmas trees in a room dressed to represent China. There was even a chap dressed in a top hat wandering around and making irritatingly loud conversation with visitors in an alarming mockney accent as though he was one of the servants. Lovely.

Still, each to their own and it certainly made for a very interesting walk around.

I left my traditional Christmas wish on the tree too. 
And we bought some biltong.

let's hope the next beats the last...

2018 is a marathon year, with the London Marathon already looming large in the diary.... less than 110 days to go already....so apparently we’re now the kind of people who prioritise a good night’s sleep and a double parkrun in the morning over celebrating the arrival of the New Year.... which is exactly what we did on New Year's Eve, shooing our dinner guests out of the door before 11pm and making sure that I was all tucked up underneath my duvet less than fifteen minutes later.

A lot of people in my office are mystified as to why anyone would want to be up early doors to run one parkrun at 9am on New Year's Day, never mind two... but genuinely it was an enormous amount of fun with lots of our friends and a lovely, fun run atmosphere.  It's probably not for everyone, but apparently it is for us. I loved it.  My younger self is horrified that I prioritised my running over my drinking, but that's his problem.

Anyway.

Here are 9 pictures of things that made me happy in 2017.  Thanks for being a part of it.  Running features quite heavily, just as I imagine it will in 2018, with lots of races already booked and the marathon programme underway.  My legs have been getting stiffer just recently, and I've just been prescribed a muscle relaxant to try to ease them off as I sleep. Rather than encouraging me to think about stopping running, actually this encourages me to keep going.  I might not be as fast as I would like, but I rather think that it might be very difficult to start going again if ever do stop.... it might come to that, but we're not there yet and there's a few more miles left in me yet.

Thanks for all your love and support this year.  2017 was a pretty rubbish year, all things considered and I'm not sure that any of this would be possible without the support of our friends... whether they be near or far, online or in person.

May each day of 2018 be better than the last for you and for yours.

Let's try to keep on keepin’ on for another twelve months, eh?  Why not?

Happy New Year.

now years have gone by and we’re all so much older...

You might remember that I'm a big fan of Christmas music, but not a big fan of the same old songs we hear every single year. With that in mind, here's my seasonal playlist for you to enjoy. I've shared it before, but it changes a bit year to year, depending on what I discover, old or new.

There was a real run of great albums around 2011/12 with "This is Christmas" by Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler, "Funny Looking Angels" by Smith and Burrows and the gorgeous "Tinsel and Lights" by Tracey Thorn, but it feels like I haven't had anything really good since.

This certainly isn't a comprehensive list, so if you've got any suggestions to add to the playlist..... fire away. Try and avoid the obvious ones if you can!

It's hard to choose a favourite. Predictably, I like the sad ones: River by Joni Mitchell, Joy by Tracey Thorn or This Ain't New Jersey by Smith and Burrows.

What's yours?

Spotify

Amazon Music

Compliments of the season to you and to yours.  See you on the other side.

the beauty in the spark...

It was the last day of Hanukkah yesterday, and I listened to a man on the radio his morning (he was a writer from the Jewish Chronicle) discussing how his family didn't celebrate Christmas at all because it's not a Jewish festival.  Apparently, there's some concern that the Jewish festival of lights - which generally takes place around November/December time - is in real danger of being swallowed up entirely by Christmas, with Jewish children and parents under pressure to take part in the all-consuming traditions of  the Christian holiday at the expense of their own customs and exchanging presents and so on.  This chap was saying that he enjoys carols and the lights and things, but he's Jewish, so tries not to get too caught up in Christmas.

It got me thinking: I'm atheist, although brought up in the Christian tradition.  I don't believe in God and have no desire to worship anything or anyone, but I very much enjoy this time of year.  Late December is a time when people seem to be generally just a bit softer around the edges than they are the rest of the year. Perhaps it's just that most people have been out on the sauce, but I prefer to think that it's a time of year that has people thinking about their friends and family and other people who are near and dear to them, and this smooths off a lot of our prickles and edges as we huddle together in the depths of winter. I like the lights (be they for Hannukah, Diwali, Christmas or whatever) and I like the songs (well, some of them) and I like much of the rest of it too.

As Tracey Thorn sings in "Joy"

"It's because of the dark
We see the beauty in the spark"

It's no coincidence that pagans celebrated at this time of year too. (Yes, OBVIOUSLY Jesus was actually born on 25 December and it JUST HAPPENED to be an existing festival).  People like a party in the depths of Sister Winter.  Can you blame them?

I don't believe in God, but I do exchange presents and I do wear a Christmas jumper and I do eat mince pies and have that extra glass of booze.  The fact that this all happens around a Christian festival is neither here nor there to me... although I suppose that's an easy thing for an atheist to say. Is it much harder for someone brought up in the Jewish faith to hand presents over when it's part and parcel of a different tradition?  I think back to when I used to help primary school children with their reading on a Wednesday morning.  At this time of year, most of the pupils I would be reading with were the children of Jehovah's Witnesses from the Kingdom Hall over the road.  Why was I reading with them? Because assembly would now mostly consist of singing carols in the run-up to Christmas, and their particular brand of religion wouldn't allow them to take part in that. I always thought that was a really hard sell to a small child, and I imagine that many Jewish children also find it difficult that they don't get Christmas presents.

Carols are overtly religious, I suppose - even if the Holly and the Ivy demonstrates just how much the Christian religion adapted pagan rituals... the rising of the sun and the running of the deer? Where's that in the Bible? - but presents?  Does the ritual of exchanging gifts at Christmas really have anything to do with the Three Wise Men?  And Santa?  Where does Jesus stand on Father Christmas? It's a constant source of irritation to me that otherwise sane people seem to get genuinely excited at the first time they see the Coca-Cola "holidays are coming" advert on the television each year, and that traffic grinds to a halt when the truck visits our town. They really do seem to think that Father Christmas as we currently imagine him was an invention of a corporation rather than a reflection of the red and white bishop's robes worn by Saint Nicholas in the Fourth Century.  You can buy Coca-Cola Christmas jumpers, of course.

So Christians didn't invent the party at this time of year, but frankly, what does Christmas really have to do with their tradition any more anyway?  Remember that Donald Trump made a huge song and dance in his campaign about how his administration wasn't going to be messing around with any of that "Happy Holidays" inclusive nonsense.  Oh no!  Christmas was coming back in a big way and political correctness could go hang.

Well, guess who made a point of saying "Happy Hannukah to our Jewish brothers and sisters" the other day? (read the full statement here: you won't be surprised to learn that it's entirely crass and tactless).

I suppose that I can understand why some people feel that their own traditions are under threat, and why that Jewish chap on the radio was worried about the erosion of Hannukah traditions.... as John Lennon once sang:

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

And, lest we start thinking about what can be so wrong about children dreaming about receiving presents at this time of year, remember what Lennon went on to say:

"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people"

Lennon was a damn fool idealist, of course.  Ha!  World Peace?  What are you jabbering about, man?  Still, how about we just try and live our lives for the next week or so by the prime directive: don't be a dick.  That's basically what all religions boil down to, isn't it?

We can at least try that, can't we? Even if it's just for the next few days until the turning of the year.  Who knows?  Perhaps 2018 will be the year we finally make it stick past the end of December.

the summer of the soul in December...

I was very excited to hear the news that The Muppet Christmas Carol would be receiving a cinematic re-release this December.  Whilst I can't honestly say that is my absolute favourite seasonal film*, it's a film that brings back some very happy memories and holds a special place in my heart.  Besides, has Michael Caine - who plays Scrooge entirely straight, with no regard to the fact that the vast majority of his co-stars are muppets - ever been better in all his long and illustrious career?



It's in the singing of a street corner choir
It's going home and getting warm by the fire
It's true, wherever you find love
It feels like Christmas

Irresistible, right?

Well, as I was talking about this with my team at work, whilst Jack was very enthusiastic and wanted to look up when screenings were on in Nottingham, the girls in the team were entirely indifferent.  In fact, most of them hadn't even seen it.  "It's a boy's film", said Alice, dismissively.

Wait, what?

As a man, perhaps it's my privilege speaking here, but I would never in a million years have The Muppet Christmas Carol down as a boy's film.  It's hardly Die Hard, is it?  We spent the next few minutes doing a sampling of all the people around our desks, and indeed..... most of the girls hadn't seen it and thought it was a boy's film, and most of the boys were fairly enthusiastic about it.

Say it ain't so!

Of course, the whole concept of there being "boy's films" and "girl's films" is nonsense, but if you allow the concept, then surely Muppet Christmas Carol would be nowhere near the top of anyone's list.  Even amongst seasonal films, it's nowhere near the top, is it?

I'd be fascinated to hear what you think.

Oh, and guess what I'm giving every single member of my team as a Christmas gift.

---
* Elf**

** or maybe Bad Santa***

*** probably Trading Places.****

**** Just don't talk to me about Love Actually.  In my view, that's a vile, cynical film where every single male character behaves as though they don't have an ounce of respect for any of the women.  Ugh.  

because of the dark, we see the beauty in the spark...

My #MistletoeMugshot for the MS Trust - pucker up people and share the love! And text MWAH16 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 to support the 100,000 living with MS in the UK this Christmas.

It has to be said that Minou was less than amused to be taking part in this picture. The cat box was down from the attic, so she was already suspicious... and this seemed to confirm all her fears.  And then we took her to cat prison.

Whatever else you're doing during the darkest time of the year, try to spend some time with the ones that you love and who love you.

See you on the other side.

from the place we were born to the land of the free...

It's 23rd December, but for some reason, I don't feel especially Christmassy yet.  I've wrapped my presents, we've had the big Christmas Jumper run at parkrun (also my 50th parkrun)...

...and I've sung in my big Christmas concert at Nottingham's Albert Hall in front of hundreds of people; I even got a really excellent secret santa present at work this year, with a little pack that included some homemade blackcurrant jam...but I just haven't got the feeling yet.  I like Christmas too, so this is something of a disappointment.

I think part of it is that I haven't finished work yet - I'm in-store on Christmas Eve - and I'm working between Christmas and New Year too; maybe the unseasonably warm weather also has something to do with it; maybe too it's the fact that I haven't listened to as much seasonal music as I usually do because I've been so busy listening to my choir rehearsal tracks.  Who knows?  Maybe it's all of these things.

Well, whether I'm feeling it or not, Christmas is almost here.

As is now traditional at this time of year, as I sign-off for the festive period, I make a donation to a charity in the name of everyone who takes the time to read any of the nonsense that I write here throughout the year.  This year, thinking back to the things that have fired me up the most over the last few months, I've chosen to make that donation to Refugee Action.  They're a fantastic charity who provide emergency food and shelter to asylum seekers and refugees, they provide legal support to asylum seekers, they support the refugees resettled in the UK by the UNHCR... well, it seemed like a worthy and appropriate cause to support.

As the charity themselves say on their donation page, £30 will give vital advice and emotional support to families in distress, £60 could provide a refugee family with a room for the night, warm clothes and a hot meal and the £100 that I donated could help ten survivors learn English. This was in the charity's thank-you email:

Mohammed escaped persecution in Eritrea and eventually made the dangerous journey to Greece in a rubber dingy from Turkey. He came to the UK because he already spoke English, and was granted refugee status. “I love the UK,” he says. “I feel like a human here. I’m treated with dignity and respect regardless of my religion or race. I can speak without restrictions. I never knew what freedom meant before, but now I am free". To the people of the UK he says: “Thank you for the safety, respect and values you share with refugees. Thank you for sharing with us your shelter, food, time, thoughts and smiles.”

Long may we continue to be that kind of country.

Compliments of the season to you all.  Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and happy and with the people you love.

Speak to you on the other side.

hang some tinsel on that evergreen bough....

On Tuesday evening, I took part in a singing Christmas Tree.

We’ve been learning the winter season at choir now for something approaching 3 months, but it’s not really accurate to call our weekly sessions “rehearsals”, because that implies that the end goal is the end-of-season concerts. The concerts certainly provide some focus – we’re singing to 800 people in Nottingham’s Albert Hall on Sunday evening – but I think the simple act of singing in a choir for a couple of hours each week is a thing worth celebrating in its own right. It’s definitely more than just practice for the big concerts.

The singing Christmas Tree was part of a series of events laid on this week by the West Bridgford Methodist church to support some of their charities. Although we sing in this church every week, we’ve not actually practiced with the choir in this arrangement, and it was very strange to find myself singing and not to be able to hear any other basses. In some of the songs that I know really well, all I could hear was other voice parts, and I started to wonder if I was singing the wrong bits. It was my first concert of the season, and we were far from perfect on the night, but I’m pretty sure we got away with it. One more concert tonight and then the next stop is the Albert Hall.

As an atheist, you wouldn’t think that churches are really my natural habitat, nor would you imagine that I would enjoy singing songs about God (we’re not a religious choir, but at this time of the year, it sort of goes with the territory). Well, I’ve always loved cathedrals as beautiful buildings in their own right, and it's possible to enjoy that and even to appreciate the devotion that built them without buying into anything else.  And actually I’m able to switch off the part of my brain that finds this God stuff daft, and just enjoy these songs as beautiful songs (there was an especially lovely ensemble piece on Tuesday of "The Angel Gabriel").  Some of them are a bit grovelly, it must be said, which wouldn’t be to my taste if I was the Creator, but I'm not, so there you go.  Perhaps he likes that sort of stuff (although I suspect it says an awful lot more about the songwriters than it does their God).

 My friend Tony took some pictures of me as we were singing “Little Donkey”. We don’t do much choreography – lucky for me – but we did have to do a little bit of gazing up in wonder during this song during the “ring out those bells tonight” bit. As has been pointed out, I look as though I’m not so much looking up in wonder as staring at an incoming comet. Or, as I suggested, I’ve realised that a lifetime of atheism is coming home to roost, and that I’m standing in a church and about to burst into flames.

You, dear reader, can make up your own mind….

We drink, we sing on the state we're in If it leads to another year...

Well, I'm just about done here before Christmas.  What with one thing and another, I probably won't have a chance to write anything much before we get back from Austria in the New Year.

All that remains is to wish you all the compliments of the season.

As is now traditional around here, I've also made a donation to Shelter in the name of everyone who has popped by over the course of the last twelve months.

It's a great charity and the money will definitely help towards making sure some other people can enjoy the festive season too.

Be excellent to each other and see you on the other side.

Thanks 2014, it's been emotional.

naughty or nice....

It's that most wonderful time of the year again when I get to be Santa.  I think I must have been doing this for about a decade now.  It was somewhat easier when she sat behind me at work than it has been in the last few years since she moved back to Australia.... but we manage.

Time was when the fact that her kids didn't know anyone with the same handwriting as Santa (and they checked *everything* that came into the house, which meant I had to be really careful with cards and things) was proof that Santa was real.  They're fifteen and twelve now, and mum and I had a brief discussion a few weeks ago about whether or not Santa's services were still required.  After a little consideration, the answer came back: "The eldest was asking about writing Santa a letter this year, so I think we're definitely on.  I've also realised that even if they were ready to move on, I'm not ready yet and I want this tradition to continue as long as possible".

I can't help but agree with that.  I absolutely love doing this and it will be something of a sad day when it comes to an end.

Anyway.  This year's letters:

As ever, mum sent me copies of the letters her two daughters had written to Santa.  Hannah is the eldest, and she went through a phase where her letters basically said things like "I want a mobile phone".  Ellie, as the younger of the two, was happy drawing pictures and asking how Mrs. Claus was and was much more straightforwardly adorable.  But do you remember being a teenager?  Anyway, this year she seems to be back into the whole pretence and has written a proper letter.  Sadly for her, her mum wasn't really paying attention when she showed her the Dr.Who t-shirt that she really liked.  Oh well, these letters always were about expectation setting.

Now she's twelve, I imagine that Ellie is fully aware of the game that we all play about Santa.  Still, she seems willing to keep playing, and I like to think that it's all part of the traditional family Christmas that they grew up with.  As well as the letters, I also write up a set of gift tags too.  It's the complete package (well, as long as the postal service does the business.  Last guaranteed post to Australia before Christmas was about a week ago.  The letters have been scanned and emailed as a precaution.

Mum and Dad got a surprise letter from Santa too:

This is one of my favourite jobs of the year.  Without question.

sleigh bells ring..

The Puppini Sisters @ Nottingham Glee Club, 10th December 2014

I know I say this every year, but I really like Christmas music. Well, perhaps I should say seasonal music. Along with a deep, rich pint of winter ale and a roaring fire, there’s something about songs about this time of year that make me feel all warm and cosy. The only problem is that our definition of “Christmas Music” seems to stretch to about 20 songs… your Slades and Wizzards and McCartneys and Mariahs. I’m sure they all have their own merits, but to my ears they’ve been so overplayed as to become almost unlistenable. Even the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. “The Fairytale of New York” used to seem a bit like a well-kept secret, but now it’s *everyone’s* favourite Christmas song. This year, I even saw a Facebook campaign to get it to Number One in the UK singles chart for Christmas Day. How quaint, I thought.

I was reminded this week that I actually put a Spotify playlist together last year of my Christmas tunes of the moment. It seems pretty decent, so I’ll share it here again. The only real omission for me is Joseph Spence’s magnificently shambolic version of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, but that didn’t seem to be available. All I can say is that I HIGHLY recommend you seek it out.

Looking through that list, I suppose the sad thing is that I haven’t found anything new this year to add. The last few years have been pretty productive on that front, with albums by Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler and Smith and Burrows in particular quickly becoming firm favourites around here. Last year I went back in time and started scouring songs by people like Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Cash (although, frankly, the Cash records seem to come from a time when he was very much in love with the Big JC….). This year, not so much.

Last night, a friend had a spare ticket to see the Puppini Sisters at the Nottingham Glee club, and because I don’t see him all that often, I was delighted to take him up on the offer. Boy, am I glad I did. It turns out that the Puppini Sisters did a Christmas album back in 2010 that somehow escaped my attention, and their show was essentially a run through of seasonal songs (and filthy jokes) designed to put us all in a festive mood.

If you’re not familiar with the band, here’s how they describe themselves on their website:

"Let’s face it: who can resist three bewitching females dressed in delightfully matching attire, singing in close harmony and moving in impeccably synchronized steps? Just like the Andrews Sisters, who took the genre to the top (one hundred and thirteen songs in the American charts between '38 and '51...), the Puppini Sisters have long become synonym with the intoxicating mix of music and style they call Swing-Pop, and have won hearts all over the world.  Back in 2004, when Marcella Puppini created a new Sisters group, the idea was not to try and copy the enchantments of a historical songbook: rather to create an individual sound, which would encapsulate the trio’s eclectic influences….Every style was filtered through their rigorous, sunny, vocal discipline: no improvisation, just the extraordinary power of a wall of voices whose architecture seemed designed by a virtuoso. In their first two albums, Betcha Bottom Dollar and The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo, they combined their own arrangements of classics from the Thirties to the Fifties, jazzy reinventions of rock hits, and self-penned original songs. And then they sang for Santa Claus in Christmas with the Puppini Sisters, before tackling the Garden of Eden of vocal standards, i.e. old-school Hollywood, and being invited to duet with Michael Bublè on his Christmas album".

Yup, this is a band so in tune with Christmas that they were co-opted by Bublè himself.

Bublè!

They play a pretty good setlist here, and it turns out it was just what I was looking for.  All the better for being completely unexpected.  Here Comes Santa Claus, Santa Baby, Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, Last Christmas (complete with a filthy George Michael joke), All I Want for Christmas is You… as well as non-seasonal songs like Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend and Mr Sandman. They were sensational and backed by a more-than-accomplished three-piece band. The bassist - with a proper, stand-up double bass - was absolutely brilliant, but they also have a drummer who can play the piano! Who knew?

Their Christmas album might not be exactly new, but it’s new to me and gives me something fresh to add to my Christmas playlists. Given that I just received my copy of the twentieth anniversary edition of the Holy Bible by the Manic Street Preachers, it’s perhaps good to listen to something a little more cheery and seasonal than “The Intense Humming of Evil” (remastered).

A fun night. Thanks Dave!

Verdict: 7.5 / 10

can't forget you only get what you give...

I've spent the last few days down in Oxford, working on the fragrance counter of our shop there and enjoying some Christmas cheer with my friends.  We're back in Nottingham now, but I'm unpacking one bag only to pack another as we're about to head off to France to spend Christmas with C's parents in the Loire Valley.  A few days working on my feet in a shop and I quickly realise how comfortable life behind a desk can be.  I'm knackered....although, to be fair, some of that may be down to food I've been eating and the booze I've been drinking, especially last night's delicious cocktails.  I've also watched both "Trading Places" and "Anchorman 2" already today, so I'm emotionally drained too.

Anyway.

As is my custom at this time of year, I've made a donation to Shelter as a small thank you to everyone who has stopped by here over the last year to read me wittering on about this and that.

Every morning last week, I walked the couple of miles down the hill from Headington into the centre of Oxford, and every day I walked past several homeless people.  It's not been especially cold yet this winter, but it's certainly not nice to be out on the street at this time of the year.  Shelter's Christmas campaign this year is trying to raise awareness of the 80,000 children in this country who are homeless.  That's an astonishing and shocking figure.

I'm not one for religion, as you know.... so here's hoping that you all spend some time with the people you love over the next few days.  Life is short and friends are precious.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

Stay classy and see you all on the other side.

I'm preparin' for some Christmas sharin'....

I've been Uborking again.

I've bored you lot to tears about my love of Christmas music so many times, that I've taken my pet subject off to a completely different blog to hold forth over there instead.  It's part of Uborka's "Yulevent", where a different guest blogger holds forth every day about what Christmas means to them.  It's well worth a look, even if you're not interested in reading me holding forth about Joseph Spence....AGAIN.

On the off-chance that you are interested in my obsession with seasonal music, then I will take this opportunity to tell you that I've not had a great deal of luck with this year's new releases.  Last year was a bumper year, bringing me the wonderful "Tinsel and Lights" by Tracey Thorn as well as the discovery of classics like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and the surf guitar instrumental versions of seasonal staples by The Ventures.  This year seems to be mainly Mary J Blige, Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis and Kelly Clarkson.  Probably not quite what I'm looking for.  Nick Lowe might be worth a listen though.

Mind you, on the plus side, there's decades worth of pre-Slade classics to discover.  This year I've been mostly listening to Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Cash.  I love Johnny Cash, of course, but I think it's fair to say that these songs seem to come from deep within his religious phase, and he does rather go on about the Big J.... still, if he is going to go on about that stuff, then at least he does it in that magnificent bass voice.   As for Louis... well, it turns out he's quite the fan of the season.  Listening to him growling and scatting his way through a number of tunes, and suddenly it's not so very hard to see where our dear old friend Joseph Spence was coming from.  His Sandy Claw and Satchmo's Chrizzzmuzz are definitely related.

I'm still looking for a copy of the Trojan Christmas boxset, which isn't available in the UK.  Ditto the Weezer Christmas Album from a few years back.  Both are available on iTunes USA and Amazon.com... but not here.  Perhaps I'll be able to pick them up when we're in New York in January. I'd like to get'em legally if I can.  Music has worth, innit?

Oh, look at me.  I'm off again.  Anyway - you can read my post on Uborka HERE.

I'll shut up now.  I'm out on Friday, so you might not get a list of festive earworms.... so make the most of this festive good cheer whilst it lasts, eh?  We'll soon be back to Morrissey and Metallica.

As you were.

Oh - I've produced a Spotify playlist for this.  Hope this works, but you should be able to find it here.

guilty....

I was out on my work Christmas “do” last night. I’m old now, so after a weekend that involved a wine-tasting and a dinner out with some friends, there wasn’t much chance that I was going to end up rat-arsed in a casino at 3am on a school night. In spite of a very modest alcohol intake (the red wine provided was filthy, which probably helped with that), I managed to have a really good evening.

Usually with these things, you go out for a meal in a bar somewhere and things just go from there. Last year, I think we went to the Greyhounds, and in the past I’ve gone bowling and things like that. Not very exciting, perhaps, but these are your work colleagues after all. My team did something a little different this year: we went on a ghost walk and dinner at Nottingham’s Galleries of Justice. This building dates back to the fourteenth century and contains a courtroom, Gaol and police station, so you could be arrested, sentenced and executed all in the same place.

On arrival, we had a bit of time to wander around the exhibition on the Kray Twins (which seems a little odd, given they don’t have any sort of a connection with Nottingham). I was, however, rather taken with these fantastically sinister looking riot policemen.

Is it just me or is there more than a touch of Doctor Who / Terminator about these guys? I loved the feedback board too.

I mean, who doesn’t like penguins?

Soon enough though, it was the main event: a ghost walk through the courtroom and dungeons, all lit only with tealights. The actor who took us around did a fantastic job, I thought, in conjuring up an atmosphere. She apparently thought I was brave on the grounds that I was usually the first person through doors into darkened prison cells and didn’t really mind being shut up in the oubliette…. Well, perhaps compared to some of the guys I was with, but I think I’m a rational enough person that I don’t really believe that spirits from the past wander around the place rattling chains. I’m not saying I’d like to be the person who has to wander around after everyone else has gone home putting out all the tealights in the dungeons or anything… but I’m not suddenly likely to start believing in ghosts and jumping at shadows either.

I was reminded in places of Port Arthur in Tasmania… where the cruellest part of the prison is surely the one that the reformers built, where prisoners were kept hooded and in complete isolation. They have something similar in Nottingham and it’s chilling. You know where you are with a good beating, after all… but total sensory deprivation in the name of making prisons more humane? I don’t need to believe in ghosts to be able to feel the pain and suffering that a building like this, like the prison in Port Arthur, has seen over the years. It was an interesting tour.

Also, who doesn’t enjoy having dinner underneath a gibbet?

Only two more works Christmas dinners to go before the big day....

It’s because of the dark, we see the beauty in the spark...

I know it's not even December yet, but despite my best intentions, the Christmas songs have started to play inside my head.  Luckily for me, although I'm a huge fan of seasonal music, I spend as little time as I can listening to the fifteen or twenty songs that we hear all the bloody time from the end of September onwards.  I don't mind most of the songs, it's just that they've been played to death and I'm simply bored of them.  Yes, even the Pogues.  What was once the 'alternative' choice as best Christmas song is now so thoroughly mainstream that it's about as alternative as Michael Buble.

Yes, it can certainly be hard to avoid Slade, Wizzard, the Pogues and the rest of them when they are playing on a loop in every shop you go into, and I'm certainly not immune... but, if you try hard enough, you can work to tune them out.  Just think of the saxophone solo on "Careless Whisper", for example, and you should be fine....

There have been some brilliant seasonal albums released in the last few years.  My favourite from last year was "Tinsel and Lights" by Everything But the Girl's Tracey Thorn.  There's something about her beautiful, downbeat voice that really appeals to me.  Her cover of Dolly Parton's "Hard Candy Christmas" is a thing of beauty.  The song that gets me every time though is "Joy".



Ah!  Beautiful.  It might still be November, but I think I could listen to this song at pretty much any time of the year.  AND I'M NOT SORRY ABOUT IT!

My favourite seasonal song is from the distinctly unlikely album "Funny Looking Angels" by the drummer from Razorlight and the singer from Editors, Smith & Burrows.  It's a brilliant album, and again, much of this is good enough to stand up at any time of the year.  "This Ain't New Jersey" is just a masterpiece.



Hmm.  Another downbeat song.  I'm rather afraid that might say something about me as everyone else is listening to mostly absurdly upbeat records.

Still, this is a bit more uptempo, and frankly, what's not to like about a Christmas Song about zombies?

Well I don't want to have my last Noel,
We'd better kick those zombies back to Hell
If we want to live to tell the Zombie Christmas!



But, you know.  There's one seasonal song that stands head and shoulders above the rest.  When one of my colleagues asked me what my favourite Christmas record was, this was my only possible answer.



My colleague just shrugged, said she'd never heard of it and started talking about Wham. Mind you, this is the same person who declared that it wasn't Christmas until she'd seen the Coca-Cola advert. The worst part was that everyone else agreed with her. WTF?

Anyway.  It's not even bloody December and I'm talking about Christmas music.  Well, at least it's good music, eh?  (even if it might be a little mournful...)

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! (Is it okay to watch "Elf" yet?)

(btw, anyone got any good tips for Xmas albums this year??  I'm all ears....)

and I'm on fire....

Tomorrow is Bonfire Night.  People keep asking me if I'll be going to a bonfire party this year, and lots of my colleagues seem genuinely excited about the prospect of the charity firework and bonfire party that is taking place at my office on Friday this week (postponed from last Friday because of the Fire Brigade strike, although the pissing rain we had on the night would probably have been its own kind of safety measure...).  

The answer is no.  I don't really like fireworks.  I've seen one or two absolutely amazing displays in my life: one organised and the other not so much.  The organised display was on Cocoa Beach in Florida on Independence Day in 1999 and it was quite a sight to behold as they launched volley after volley of fireworks over the ocean.  The rather less organised display was by the people of Amsterdam on New Year's Eve in 1999, where everyone seemed hell-bent on losing their fingers by hand launching fireworks. It was astonishing to watch, and by the end of the night, we were ankle deep in red wadding paper and had to wade our way through it.  Every other display has basically been a bit shit.  Well, you've seen one, you've pretty much seen'em all, haven't you?  I really don't see the big attraction.   And who really thinks it's a good idea to suggest that I stay back at work on a Friday night so I can spend some time with other people's children, some low rent fireworks and some brown van catering? And PAY for the pleasure?  No thanks.

All this bah-humbuggery got me thinking though:  do people still chuck a guy onto their bonfire?  This was a big part of bonfire night when I was a kid, and we used to spend a bit of time at cubs or scouts making our own guy and then, in time-honoured "penny for the guy" fashion, we would take it around trying to raise a bit of money before chucking the whole lot on the bonfire and cheering when it went up in flames.  I didn't think anything much of it as a child, but isn't it a slightly weird and macabre thing to be doing?

Guy Fawkes himself was not actually burned: 

The Attorney General Sir Edward Coke told the court that each of the condemned would be drawn backwards to his death, by a horse, his head near the ground. They were to be "put to death halfway between heaven and earth as unworthy of both". Their genitals would be cut off and burnt before their eyes, and their bowels and hearts removed. They would then be decapitated, and the dismembered parts of their bodies displayed so that they might become "prey for the fowls of the air".

As it turned out, Fawkes was able to jump from the gallows and broke his neck in the fall, escaping the rather specific agonies of his sentence.  His remains, however, were still quartered and sent around the country.

Nice, huh?  As if that wasn't bad enough, we burn effigies of him and remember his treason every single year for hundreds of years after his death.  Things got worse for Catholics after the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in 1604, and by 1613 there was a Bill introduced into the Commons to compel Catholics to wear a red hat, or coloured stockings, like a clown... so they could be recognised and hooted at in the street.  Does that remind you of anything?

So why on Earth are we still casually celebrating this hatred and religious discrimination in this day and age?  Can you imagine if we burned muslim effigies on our bonfires every year instead of Catholic ones?  You know, for kids....

We do still burn a Guy on Bonfire Night, by the way.  In the age of political correctness, that seems to be one tradition that seems to have survived.  The Guardian tells me that Edenbridge in Kent will be burning an effigy of Katie Hopkins.  Last year they burned an effigy of Lance Armstrong.  I'm assuming that being burned alive isn't very pleasant, so if burning an effigy of a long dead plotter is bad enough, what on earth are we to make of the burning of effigies of people who are still alive?  Even if that's a joke, it's in pretty poor taste.

Of course, thanks in large part to Alan Moore, Guy Fawkes is enjoying something of a global resurgence as the face of rebellion and disobedience against controlling governments.

"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people".

I'm not sure it's quite what he had in mind when he was discovered loading those twenty barrels of gunpowder into the cellars beneath the Houses of Parliament, but it's probably an improvement on being remembered simply as a Catholic traitor who must symbolically pay for his crimes year after year after year.

Enjoy your fireworks.

you would even say it glows....

Hello.  Apologies for the unusual silence around here.... I've been off in Oxford for a few days doing some actual work for a change as well as eating an awful lot of pies and drinking an awful lot of booze.  It's all good.

I thought I'd swing by to offer my compliments of the season to you and to yours.  I've been off running this morning in the beautiful pouring rain wearing a santa hat, and as you can see from the picture, when you've got a hooter that big and red, who needs Rudolph to guide their sleigh tonight?

As ever, I like to make a donation at this time of year to people less fortunate than me. This year I'm going to donate to a charity that we discovered for the first time when we were travelling in Cambodia in 2010: HOPE - harnessing opportunities through play and education.

"With first hand experience volunteering in Cambodia the founding trustees set up HOPE to give the underprivileged children and young adults in Cambodia a chance to have a childhood and/or permanently improve their lives. HOPE intends to seek and support existing programs in Cambodia assisting young people with their education and social development where there is a need for further funding to expand either the variety of their activities (eg. provision of English classes or computer classes) or increase the number of young people they can support, where we strongly believe it will make a permanent difference/improvement to the young people in the programs, and where we can monitor the progress and results of the program. For further information please see www.hopeforcambodia.org.uk"

We saw their work at first hand, and were shown around one of their schools in Siem Reap and had dinner at a restaurant they run purely to give local kids a chance to pick up the skills they can use to get a good job at one of the hotels that the town has to cater for the thousands of tourists who pass through on their way to admire Angkor Wat.  It was a lovely evening and it's a really excellent charity.  Cambodia is only just emerging from conflict and is noticeably more third world than Thailand or Vietnam on either side.  It also has something of a reputation: when we were there, there are signs up as you cross the border requesting tourists to let their children be children, and one night when we were taking a picture of a sunset from a beach bar, a seedy old white guy with a very young looking local girl covered his face with his hand.  Yeah..... So, anyway, on behalf of everyone who passes through here from time to time, I've made a £50 donation to this great little charity.

If you'd like, you can also donate here.

Happy Xmas, everyone.  War is over if you want it.

Still the same old songs
They fill the air
We drink we sing oh the state we're in
Here's to another year.

it stays pretty green...

No sooner do I put a Christmas playlist together, than I go and discover a whole new load of songs that might warrant inclusion.  Well, it's an electronic playlist, so it's hardly a big deal.... but still.  It's the principle of the thing.

I was thinking about how much I've enjoyed the three seasonal albums that I bought last year (Which, I know I keep mentioning, but if you needed reminding: She & Him, Smith & Burrows and Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler.  There were a lot of ampersands about in December 2011, huh?) and it got me wondering if I was missing anything this year.  Living, as I do, as a hermit, I haven't really seen much of the hit parade and I don't really know what's going on anymore.

So I did some googling.

Before I knew where I was, and I was in possession of some new music.

"Tinsel & Lights" by Tracey Thorn
"CeeLo's Magic Moment" by CeeLo Green
"Silver & Gold" by Sufjan Stevens

They're all pretty different.  Thorn's is fairly low-key and features a couple of original songs as well as a few standards and some well-judged covers by the likes of the White Stripes ("In the Cold, Cold Night") and Joni Mitchell ("River").  It's really good.  And, of course, listening to Tracy Thorn sing makes me think that I really need to download "Missing" too.  Now that's a tune.

CeeLo's album couldn't really be more different: it's jam-packed full of massive, OTT anthems sung at full-bore and featuring duets with the likes of Christina Aguilera (an ill-advised "Baby It's Cold Outside"), Rod Stewart and...um... the muppets.  Oh, and it also features another cover of "River".  Was it only yesterday that I saying how that was probably my favourite Christmas song?  Well, it seems like that might suddenly be cliche.  Actually, where Tracy Thorn's cover is pretty faithful to Joni's original, CeeLo replaces the piano with an organ, and sings it with some real restraint and it sounds fantastic.  It's a ridiculous album in many ways, but it's fun and that's kind of the point.

Sufjan's album is a continuation of his series of Christmas EPs.  I've got volumes 1-5 in a neat boxset, but this time I downloaded volumes 6-10 as it just seemed easier and was a lot cheaper.  What does it sound like?  Age of Adz or Illinoise? (one I hate, one I love) Well, some and some.  I haven't had a chance to listen to it all yet, but so far it's a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous.  He's many things, but Sufjan Stevens is rarely dull.

...and whilst I was at it, I downloaded a copy of the Vince Guaraldi Trio's "A Charlie Brown Christmas".  Well, everyone needs a bit of seasonal jazz on their playlist, right?

Right?

Unless you've got any good seasonal music selections I should check out, I should probably just change the subject already.  OK.  Changing the subject now.  Mind you, I might be treating you to some crap fiction tomorrow, and then you'll be begging me to get back to talking about Christmas music.

Begging me!

OK - one more.  60s surf guitar Christmas instrumentals FTW!

christmas time has come, oh man you better run, run, run....

As I say on here every year, I love Christmas music.  Well, not just Christmas music, but music appropriate for listening to at this time of year. Winter music.  As Smith & Burrows put it on last year's "This Ain't New Jersey", we hear "those same old songs, every single year": Slade, Shaky, Cliff, Jona bloody Lewie, Lennon, the Pogues, Wizzard.... They're okay, I suppose, and I used to love listening to them when I was kid, but I'm sick of them now as it's pretty much all you ever seem to hear.

It was something of a revelation to me to discover that there's plenty of other festive songs out there, and some of them are absolutely fantastic.   There's the Phil Spector classics, of course, but there's some great new music too.  Last year in particular was a bumper crop, with "This Is Christmas" by Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler, "A Very She & Him Christmas" by She & Him and "Funny Looking Angels" by Smith & Burrows.  I bought them last December, and they sound even better this time around.  That Smith and Burrows album, in spite of the distinctly unpromising premise that it's made by a bloke out of the Editors and a bloke out of Razorlight (but not THAT bloke), is really excellent and I've actually been listening to it all year.  The album I've been listening to most this month though is the Emmy the Great one.  What's not to like about a song about a Christmas zombie apocalypse?

Well I don't want to have my last Noel
We'd better kick those zombies back to Hell
If we want to live to tell the Zombie Christmas

As I've done over the last few years, I've put together a seasonal compilation for myself.  There's a bit of overlap with other years (I just can't leave off Joseph Spence or Peter Broggs) and I've actually included the Pogues this year as I want to remember that it's a great song, not just a song that is being ruined by over-exposure.

Anyway.  If you're interested, here's the list I've put together this year.

1. Baby It's Cold Outside - Dean Martin & Doris Day
2. Little Saint Nick - Beach Boys
3. I Don't Intend to Spend Christmas Without You - Claudine Longet
4. Gaudete! - traditional (thanks Leesa!)
5. Sleigh Ride - The Ventures
6. Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing) - Tim Wheeler & Emmy The Great
7. Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Joseph Spence
8. Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes
9. White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
10. Did I Make You Cry on Christmas (Good, You Deserved It) - Sufjan Stevens
11. Marshmallow World - Darlene Love
12. Santa Baby - Kylie
13. Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) - Laura Marling
14. Silver Bells - She & Him
15. O Come, O Come Emmanuel - Belle & Sebastian
16. Here Comes Santa Claus - Wayne Newton
17. When The Thames Froze - Smith & Burrows
18. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus - The Ronettes
19. (Don't Call Me) Mrs. Christmas - Tim Wheeler & Emmy the Great
20. A Great Big Sled - The Killers
21. Come On! Let's Boogy To The Elf Dance! - Sufjan Stevens
22. Twelve Days of Christmas - Peter Broggs
23. I Wish It Was Christmas Today - Julian Casablancas
24. Zombie Christmas - Tim Wheeler & Emmy the Great
25. This Ain't New Jersey - Smith & Burrows
26. River - Joni Mitchell
27. Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
28. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - The Crystals
29. Home For The Holidays - Tim Wheeler & Emmy the Great
30. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
31. Jingle Bell Rock - The Ventures
32. The Christmas Song - She & Him

I listen to it on shuffle.  I skip different songs on different days, but mostly it's working pretty well for me.  I ran to it only this evening.  Medieval carols surprisingly good for a 5 mile run in the freezing cold.  Who knew?

Word up too for the Eye in the Sky who pointed me in the direction of Fire, Sleet & Candlelight for some more traditional, medieval style carols, and also to Leesa, who encouraged me to attend her BeVox concert last night where I (re)discovered the delights of "Gaudete!".  That's pretty much the Fleet Fox's act, right there.

If anyone else has any tips for some decent seasonal music, then let me know.  I'm also still after a copy of the Trojan Christmas box set, so any leads on that much appreciated....

My favourite seasonal song?  Probably "River" by Joni Mitchell.  It's beautiful.  Sandy Claw is next, mind.  Do check out This Ain't New Jersey, though.  It's a cracker.  Yeah.  Surprised me too.  The guy from the Editors!

What's your favourite?