Resumé

Advent Jukebox 25 - Broadway was Waiting for Me

(Belated) Advent Jukebox 24 – Ding Dong, Ding Dong, Ding Dong, Ding. Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney (1979) Written by Paul McCartney Yes, this one is more than a little bit late. Soz. Annoying as I managed a 23 day streak throughout the rest of December. What can I say? Actual…

Advent Jukebox 23 -

Advent Jukebox 22 – The Rarest Dish of All the Land The Boar’s Head Carol (Traditional, circa 15th Century) Modern Coral Arrangement by Elizabeth Poston, 1960 And now we get into the meat of the build-up to Christmas. With emphasis on the word “meat”. We’ve been a butcher’s wet dream over the last…

Additional Christmas Flog – A Card Day’s Night Just for fun: a selection of the Christmas cards I've sent out this Christmas. If you haven't had one of these then you've been a very good boy or girl this year.

Advent Jukebox 21 – The Ox and Ass and Camel In The Bleak Midwinter by Chas ‘n’ Dave (1986) Written by Christina Rossetti in 1872 The shortest day and the longest night. It's been a hell of a year. Still digesting it and it's threatening to give me serious heartburn. There's one particular turd in…

Advent Jukebox 20 – Never Too Grown for Your Kisses Mother Christmas (J.S. Ondara 2017) By J.S. Ondara I can’t imagine being 100 years old.  I couldn’t imagine being 50 years old and that happened.  It's awful, in case you were wondering. That still feels like a vertiginous height to be teetering…

Advent Jukebox 19 – The Christmas Spirit is Not What You Drink Pass the Bottle – A Christmas Song (Jethro Tull, 2017) By Ian Anderson & Jethro Tull I’ve previously mentioned the Marriott Hotel, Swindon, in relation to Christmases Past. Its stagnant halls were the location of a number of work…

Advent Jukebox 18 – Their Old Familiar Carols Play I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day by Various From the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1863) Some songs just get under your skin, don’t they? Sometimes unexpectedly. I think I first heard “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” at college. One of…

Advent Jukebox 17 – Fol-de-Dol-Fol-de-Dol-de-Dol Gower Wassail (Steeleye Span, 1972) (Welsh, Traditional) I’ve always had a chequered relationship with work Christmas parties. I love a good bacchanal, don’t get me wrong. And work Christmas parties tended to deliver on the Bacchanalia front.…

Advent Jukebox 16 – A Crowded Room, Friends with Tired Eyes Last Christmas by Wham Written by George Michael I turned 50 this year. That’s a fat old chunk of turbulent history I’ve inexpertly navigated without dying. That is inexplicable. I’m a ticking timebomb of bad habits, questionable choices…

Advent Jukebox 15 – Good Tidings We Bring We Wish You a Merry Christmas (West Country Folk Song, circa 16th Century) Arranged by Arthur Warrell (1935) I think, deep down, we’d all love some figgy pudding.  We all need some roughage over Christmas, during which dietary fibre is often a distant…

I'm doing this btw. Will post more details when it's not 10.45pm. But also... read the graphic and if you want to join me, message me :)

Advent Jukebox 14 – It’s the Coldest Time of Winter If We Make It Through December by Merle Haggard (1973) (Written by Merle Haggard) Is it strange to feel wistful about an escalator? The escalator at my office*, my employer’s* head office, has been out-of-order since literally before Covid. Circa…

Advent Jukebox 13 – Room is Swaying, Records Playing Merry Christmas, Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens (1985) Written by Bob Heatlie The autumn of 1993 saw me starting a BTEC in Creative Arts at Swindon New College (in Swindon, surprisingly enough). Not A-Levels, I hear you cry? No, the innovator of…

Advent Jukebox 12 – Like in the Past, a Bright Star Cantique de Noël (O Holy Night) (1847) Based on the poem “Minuet, chrétiens” by Pladide Cappeau. When I was at Secondary School, Churchfields School (now Lawn Manor Academy, a shit name in my opinion) there would, every Christmas, be a carol…

Advent Jukebox 11 – Voices Singing Let’s Be Jolly Rockin’ Around the Christmas Festive Tree by Brenda Lee Written by Johnny Marks I see that Christmas has been banned again. Deeply worrying. It’s happening every year now. By merely typing the word “C*******s I’m risking being arrested under…

Advent Jukebox 10 – My Mind’s Made Up by the Way That I Feel Christmas is All Around by Billy Mack (2003) Written by Reg Presley ‘Love, Actually’ is one of those films that’s fallen into the reputational doldrums over the last ten years. It’s writer and director Richard Curtis’ reputation seems to…

Advent Jukebox 9 – Fill My World Like the Ghost of Summer Feels Like Christmas by The Feeling (2008) Written by The Feeling The Feeling at Komedia, Bath on 20th December 2011 is one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. It’s definitely the best intimate gig I’ve ever attended. The Komedia in…

“Bitty! Want bitty!”

Advent Jukebox 8 – Don’t Think I Could Take the Pain Stay Another Day by East 17 (1994) Written by Tony Mortimer, Rob Kean and Dominic Hawken Stay Another Day is one of those classic “Non-Christmas, Christmas Songs”. No shame in that. If you’ve got a slow and sentimental ballad and you’re planning…

Advent Jukebox 7 – Do the Fairies Keep Him Sober for the Day? Merry Christmas, Everybody by Slade (1973) Written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea Fun Fact (YMMV): The Slade song “Merry Christmas, Everybody” has played in six different Doctor Who episodes to date, including four Christmas specials. That…

Advent Jukebox 6 – Love and Laughter; Joy Ever After Mistletoe and Wine by Cliff Richard (1988) Written by Jeremy Paul, Leslie Stewart and Keith Strachan I didn’t know this: “The song Mistletoe and Wine was written for a musical called ‘Scraps’ an adaption of Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Little…

Advent Jukebox 5 – Sends Me Reeling A Winter’s Tale by Queen (1995) Written by Queen (Freddie Mercury) I’ve started to listen to Queen again lately. I hadn’t stopped as such, but I’d listened to so many of the albums so many times that they’d become overfamiliar. I’d lost sight of the magic, if…

Advent Jukebox 4 – It’s Nice to Have You Here Step into Christmas by Elton John (1973) Written by Bernie Taupin & Elton John They got the weather. The Old Town, Swindon, Christmas Festival was blessed with blue skies after weeks of near constant rain. Not an umbrella in sight. It was reasonably…

Advent Jukebox 3 – So Really I’d Better Scurry Baby, It’s Cold Outside By Tom Jones & Cerys Matthews (1999) Written by Frank Loesser Swindon used to have a gay and lesbian nightclub.  It may still have a gay and lesbian nightclub, not my area of expertise, but around the early years of the 21st…

Shame Jonathan Gullis joined Reform. He had a bright future in standing next to a pub fruit machine telling you what buttons to press.

Advent Jukebox 2 – Oh What Joy Santa Brings Little Things by ABBA (2021) Written by Benny Andersson & Björn Ulvaeus I should start by saying that I’m not an ABBA fan. Nothing against them. They’re a fine, upstanding group of people. Some of my best friends are ABBA fans. I wouldn’t want my…

"BUT WHEN IS IT WHITE FRIDAY!?"

I still don’t understand why they recast Daisy-May Cooper.

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Sometimes in life you have to make time to watch squirrel videos on YouTube with your cat.

I’ll be honest, he’s not the elderly American I would have picked to die in his sleep last night.

"Really, I don’t mean to go on, but then I doubt the film-makers meant to muff the ending in a way that torpedoes later books either. This should have been a six-part BBC One series with budget to match. But I’m sure the money was very nice." This week's column is on how not to adapt a book.

Finished reading the new Slough House book today. I don’t know how Mick Herron keeps getting better and better at writing but he does.

Turns out Operation: Mincemeat the Musical is as good as everyone says it is.