A title with a double meaning. Over on my other front, I’m sharing “Wilden Klausen” which is about seasonal traditions and their underpinnings.
Here, I’m sharing what is a bit of a trans-Canadian tradition. One of the few things that is shared by all parts of Canada is CBC Radio service. Not everyone listens to it, but it’s there. Those of us who do listen to it have a yuletide tradition– listening to the sonorous Alan Maitland reading Frederick Forsyth’s attempt at the traditional English seasonal ghost story.
I’m taking next week off, so I may not look in here on Christmas Eve. In anticipation of that, I’ll wish you one and all a comfortable Christmas, Xmas, Yuletide &ct. (but not Festivus– take your pole elsewhere!) with people that bring you joy and without people that bring you COVID.
I will warn you at the outset– this presentation of the Dickens classic is… not great. I have no idea what the intended form of presentation was. Early TV? C reel in theatres? No clue. But the acting is… mostly not quite there.
Why am I offering it, then? Two reasons. One is the remarkable interpretation of the Ghost of Christmas Present; he’s generally promoted as a roaring giant (give yourself a treat if you get that reference), but I can’t think of anything else where he’s shown as an angry professional wrestler.
The other– Vincent Price narrates! It’s worth the struggle to listen to him read, and occasionally be shown his warm expressions.
Rest ye merry, folks. We’re almost through to the solstice.
A little change today– no movie, just me letting some associations run wild and free.
You could, if you wished, view this as a far-too-late-to-be-useful gift suggestion for the person on your Christmas list who is very hard to get a gift for. And it’s not even a pen.
My birthday has just passed, and as often happens to people of my culture, I got some gifts connected to the event. One of them fulfilled an ambition I’ve had since I was about 17, although it has only lately slipped out of the realm of utter fantasy. Check this out.
I promise that at no point during my drive to work did I shout “Fox 2! Weapon away!”
Yes, I have a heads-up display in my minivan. Whole unlapped Venn circles of humanity are now shaking their heads in despair.
And that’s fine. Let ’em. I’m a big boy, the boss of me, and doing no one any harm with it. In fact, quite the opposite on the last point, as I now appreciate how much contact with the traffic around me I was losing every time I darted a glance at my speed. I honestly don’t know why this sort of thing isn’t a government-enforced standard equipment in all new vehicles. It can’t be cost (yes, I know how much a birthday gift cost– big boy, me).
I can’t quite justify the altimeter display on the left in the same breath, but I swapped it for a heading indicator since the picture was taken.
Anyway, that’s me done showing off my new toy. This weekend should be merry– we’re putting up the the festive green object covered in lights tonight, and on Saturday I’m getting a late start on this year’s batch of Eggnog. Late? As you’ll see in the recipe, for it to be safe to drink on Christmas morn, I should have got it done a couple of weeks ago.
Oh, well. We may not be going around to the grandparentseses this year, but that’s no reason to not flirt with a food-borne disease!
Yes, it’s that time of year again, when the sun finally stops its southward trundle.
There’s also some kind of gift-giving festival associated with this time of year, isn’t there?
This week’s videos (yes, plural!) are all Christmas-y. I think I’ve mentioned previously that while I don’t follow Christianity, I have been embedded in it most of my life, so I’m willing to enjoy some plainly non-secular tunes in connection with the season. There’s a couple of those below.
But I also have an incorrect sense of humour, so one of these things is not like the others.
Merry Christmas to all. I have a few days off work, which will deform the usual schedule here. I will look in again on Friday, with a progress report. For today, here’s the foundation of a lot of our modern notions of Christmas, read in pleasing voices, to keep you company while you wait for the rattling of many hooves on your roof.
It must be more than one creature stirring up there. Right? So many hooves…
The light, at least north of the equator, is as scant as it will be for a whole year. HOORAH!
To observe the day, and lower us all gently into the last shopping Saturday before Christmas, some films. First, for the unreformed Scrooges of the world, here’s a look at the worst jobs to do with the season (some, for you who hold the reason for the season to be axial tilt, are from pre-Christian Europe)
And in keeping with the theme… more or less… I’ve been pursuing this month with ghost stories just because it’s the dark time of the year, here’s another Blackwood story, told by someone else entirely.
If you’ve been out in the cold too long, this is a very… familiar… story.
Today’s film exactly replicates the experience of watching TV as a child in the mid-1970s. It also gives a very good idea of what watching TV in the Netherlands is like for an English speaker.
On the second point, there’s not so many horrifying hellbeasts on Dutch TV… or at least there weren’t the last time I was there.
I hope you’re all done the necessary running around, and have plenty of free time to bake shortbread or speculaas or stollen… or in fact to not do any of that and just sit in a contented heap with people you want to spend your time with.
This last one takes a while to get through, and I suspect it’s not to all tastes, but it’s worth a look at the manifestation of Christmas Past and the treatment of the Christmas Yet To Be segment.
Stay warm, be happy, and I’ll make words at you next week.
Good news, everyone! A change of location within the Regular Job building, which I somehow failed to moan about here last winter, puts me very very very far away from the radio which produces Offensively Repetitive Christmas Music (with Some Country Versions), with a couple of walls and a ninety degree bend in the building to complete the isolation. I am blessed with silence, at least as far as seasonal tunes not of my own choosing go. One of the primary generators of Humbuggery in my life has been shut down, and I am far more able to say Merry Christmas, Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays, and Gruss vom Krampus without a scowl and a snarl. Except that last one, because the snarl is traditional.
Since I am thus liberated from woe and light of heart, let me now inflict some of my less classical musical choices on you. If you choose to listen. No one will make you press play.
Now get out there and smile at the other people in the shops. You’re all trying to brighten the world, right?
I’ve mentioned previously, at roughly twelve-month intervals, that I’m a devotee of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, to the extent that I’ve actually read it (gasp!). However, I am happy with a relatively passive enjoyment of the work– I’m not what one might call obsessed with it. Unlike the poor soul behind today’s filched film, who appears to have spent an awful lot of effort in composing a fugue and variations on the subject. If you can’t enjoy it, at least be astonished:
For my part, I’ll be watching dear old Alastair Sim again tonight, in what I hold to be the definitive version. But that’s merely my opinion. Stay warm, be of good cheer, and keep the day in your hearts throughout the whole of the year. I’ll see you next week.
What's up at Ravens March. 