31st December: Endings

For the end of the year, 10 quotes about endings...

1. Every exit is an entry to somewhere else. Tom Stoppard
2. Everything is okay in the end. If it’s not okay, then it’s not the end.
3. Goodbyes are sad, no matter what the promise of tomorrow is. Janet Leigh
4. There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. Louis L’Amour
5. After all, tomorrow is another day. Margaret Mitchell
6. In the end, everything is a gag. Charlie Chaplin
7. Until later, because life doesn’t end here. Andres Escobar closing his last ever weekly newspaper column which was published on the day of his funeral.
8. You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else. John Irving
9. Each end gives us the opportunity for a rebirth. Paolo Coelho
10. I never finish anyth...

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30 December: Rudyard Kipling Quotes

Rudyard Kipling was born on this date in 1865 so in honour of his 149th birthday, here are some quotes:

1. I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.
2. A woman's guess is much more accurate than a man's certainty.
3. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
4. I keep six honest serving-men: (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When, And How and Why and Who.
5. Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.
6. We're all islands shouting lies to each other across seas of misunderstanding.
7. A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition.
8. Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie.
9. Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh, how beautiful!' and sitting in the shade.
10. Of all said words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these it might have been.

29th December: Texas Admission Day

On this day in 1845, Texas became the 28th US State. Here are 10 things you may not know about Texas:

1. Many of the facts listed about Texas refer to its huge size. It is the second largest US state (Alaska is bigger), the second most populous (California has more people). Texas is bigger than every country in The EU.
2. Because of its sheer size, there's plenty of room to spread out - and so Texas has a number of things that are the biggest - the world's biggest car park (at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport); a ranch that is bigger than the state of Rhode Island and the world's biggest Rose garden.
3. The people are big, too. 31% of the population is obese. That is more obese people than there are people of any size living in Minnesota.
4. Texas has belonged to six different nations: Spain (1519-1821), France (1685-1690), Mexico (1821-1836), the Republic of Texas (1836-1845), the United States (1845-1861 and 1865-present) and the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). Texas has had six capital cities: Washington-on-the Brazos, Harrisburg, Galveston, Velasco, West Columbia and Austin.
5. Texas is the only state to have entered the union through a treaty rather than by annexation.
6. Its entry agreement contains a clause permitting Texas to split into as many as five states if it wanted to. While splitting Texas has occasionally been talked about, it has never really been seriously considered. One reason for this may well be that there would be a massive dispute over which of the new states could claim the Alamo.
7. The State Mascot is the Armadillo.
8. The state motto is "Friendship". The name of the state comes from the Hasinai Indian word for friends, "Tejas". Ironically, the white settlers wiped out the Hasinai tribe in Texas.
9. Approximately 90% of the world’s recoverable Helium is in the ground under Amarillo.
10. Putting graffiti on someone else's Cow is a no-no in Texas - this offence is technically still punishable by death.

28th December: Colly birds

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me, four colly birds (or calling birds). So what the heck are colly birds, anyway? They're blackbirds. Very common in the UK, the males are black with Yellow eye rings and bills, while the females and juveniles are dark brown. 10 things you may not know about blackbirds:

1. The colour of their bills can vary. They can be yellow, orange or brown; and tend to be darker in winter. A male blackbird is more aggressive towards an intruder with an Orange bill than to one with a yellow bill, or a brown bill, which he may not attack at all. When choosing a mate, one of the things a female blackbird looks for is a shiny bill.
2. Blackbirds are members of the thrush family.
3. How come blackbirds got to be called blackbirds when there were other contenders for the title, like rooks and crows? The answer is that in old English, the word "bird" was only used for smaller birds, while rooks and crows, being bigger, fell into the category of "fowl". The blackbird was the only small bird that was black. Until the 17th century, the species was also referred to as ouzel or wosel.
4. They are woodland birds, but their preferred breeding grounds now are people's gardens. Hence the most common causes of death for blackbirds is getting run over by a car or eaten by someone's Cat.
5. On average, blackbirds live 2.4 years, but one ringed blackbird lived to be over 21 years old.
6. A blackbird will usually mate for life, although pairs have been known to separate if they don't successfully breed. Their nests are cup shaped and made from grass and leaves bound together with mud. The female builds the nest. The eggs are blue-green with brown blotches. Cuckoos will lay their eggs in a blackbird's nest, but the blackbird is smart enough to recognise the cuckoo's eggs because they look different, so it is rare for them to actually raise a cuckoo chick.
7. The Greeks believed that a blackbird would die if it ate pomegranate.
8. The blackbird is the national bird of Sweden.
9. Blackbirds typically like to sing after rain.
10. Kosovo in Serbia may have been named after blackbirds as their word for blackbird is "kos" and "kosovo" means belonging to the blackbird.

27th December:Diameter of Venus measured

The planet Venus has always been visible in the night sky, so was not discovered like the outer planets - but on this date in 1722 James Bradley used what is the longest ever recorded telescope to measure the diameter of Venus. The telescope measured 212 feet and was difficult to use. 10 facts about Venus:

Radar image of Venus, by NASA

1. Its day is longer than its year. It orbits the Sun every 224.7 Earth days, but it takes 243 days for the planet to rotate. It rotates slower than any other planet in the solar system.
2. It is one of the brightest objects in the sky as seen from Earth. Only the sun and Moon are brighter. It can get so bright that it would cast shadows on Earth, and would be visible even in bright daylight.
3. It's always cloudy on Venus. The whole planet is covered in clouds made of sulphuric acid which never clear, so it would not be possible to see Earth or the Sun from the surface. The winds on Venus carry the clouds on a complete trip around the planet every four Earth days. It rains sulphuric acid, but the rain evaporates before it hits the ground. The clouds also produce Lightning. The clouds make studying the surface of Venus quite difficult. The surface cannot be observed with visible light, although scientists have managed to get an idea of what the surface looks like using radar.
4. It's also very hot. Even though it's not the closest planet to the sun (Mercury is) it is the hottest planet in the solar system. The temperature is around 462 °C on the surface, hotter than the temperature required to sterilise things. The clouds are to blame for this along with the carbon dioxide rich (96%) atmosphere. Together they create the most extreme greenhouse effect in the solar system.
5. Venus is one of just two of the planets not to have a moon (the other is Mercury) and one of only two to rotate clockwise instead of anti-clockwise (the other being Uranus).
6. Using radar, scientists have managed to study surface features on Venus. They found that it doesn't have impact craters less than one and a quarter miles across, because small asteroids would be crushed to powder by the high atmospheric pressure (92 times that of Earth). Most of the surface is made up of volcanic plains but it has two higher masses, which, if Venus had oceans, would be continents. The northern continent is called Ishtar Terra, after Ishtar, the Babylonian goddess of love, and is about the size of Australia. The southern continent is called Aphrodite Terra, after the Greek goddess of love, and is the larger of the two highland regions at roughly the size of South America. Most surface features are named after women, both mythological and historical. One exception is the highest mountain on Venus, Maxwell Montes, named after James Clerk Maxwell.
7. Venus has been observed by astronomers since ancient times. Because of the nature of the orbits of Earth and Venus, Venus is sometimes visible in the evening and sometimes in the morning, so many of those ancient astronomers assumed they were looking at two different objects and gave it two names, Phosphorous and Hesperus. By 1581 BCE the ancient Babylonians had figured out these two were actually the same thing, and they called it the "bright queen of the sky". The Chinese called it Tai-pe or “the beautiful white one,” the Egyptians called it Bonou for “bird,” and the Chaldeans named it the “bright torch of heaven.”
8. It is now thought that the UFO that former US President Jimmy Carter claimed to have seen in 1969 was actually Venus.
9. The day of the week, Friday, derives from the Anglo Saxon name for the goddess Venus, Friga. Many other languages have named the last day of the working week after Venus as well, for example, vendredi in French, venerdì in Italian, viernes in Spanish.
10. The astrological symbol for Venus is a circle with a cross underneath. The same symbol is used in biology for the female sex, and in alchemy for the element copper (because copper was used for mirrors in ancient times and so it stands for the mirror of the goddess). The same symbol is sometimes used to represent Friday.

26th December: The Feast of Stephen

The carol Good King Wenceslas tells the story of the good king's activities "on the feast of Stephen" which, for the western church, is today. So here are 10 facts about Saint Stephen.

1. Stephen is honoured as the first martyr of the Catholic church, ie the first person to die for their Christian faith.
2. His story is told in Acts of the Apostles, where he is appointed as one of seven deacons responsible for the distribution of charitable aid to poor Christians.
3. Nothing is known about his life before this. The name Stephen comes from the Greek name Stephanos, so it is generally assumed that he was a Hellenistic Jew.
4. The synagogues of the time challenged Stephen's teachings, but he debated with them and came out on top. The Jewish authorities didn't like being beaten and so they claimed, with the help of false witnesses, that Stephen had blasphemed against God and Moses, and dragged him before the Sanhedrin, or Jewish court.
5. At his trial, Stephen gave an impassioned speech which is recorded in Acts chapter 7. "Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him," Stephen said. At the end of his speech, Stephen reported that he was having a vision of Jesus standing on the right hand of God, which to his accusers, was ample proof of blasphemy, so Stephen was sentenced to death by stoning.
6. It may not have been a legal execution, as such matters were supposed to have been referred to the Roman authorities, but the Sanhedrin were so angry that they had him chased out of the city and stoned to death immediately.
7. St Paul, then known as Saul, was present that day. He looked after the coats of those carrying out the execution.
8. In art, Saint Stephen is portrayed as a clean shaven young monk with a tonsure. Sometimes he has a stone on his head to indicate how he died. Stones are sometimes referred to as "Saint Stephen's loaves".
9. Saint Stephen is patron of bricklayers, builders, stonecutters, Horses and deacons.
10. Stephen's supporters buried him, although the Book of Acts did not specify where. However, In 415 AD a priest named Lucian had a dream in which it was revealed to him the location of Stephen's grave. Relics were found at the site and those relics are preserved in the Church of St Stephen, Jerusalem. The discovery of the relics of Saint Stephen is celebrated on 3rd August.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

25th December: Day 1 of the 12 days of Christmas

We all know the song, 12 Days of Christmas, but here are some things you might not be aware of:

1. There are a couple of different suggestions as to how this song originated. One is that it was a memory game traditionally played on twelfth night where each player would have to add a new item and then recite all the items previous players had included.
2. Another theory is that it was invented for Catholic children in the days when it was illegal to be a Catholic and to possess any Catholic literature. So each item on the list has a hidden meaning relevant to the Catholic church, eg The partridge and the Pear tree was Jesus Christ, the four colly birds were the four gospels, the pipers piping were the eleven faithful apostles etc. It could be sung with no fear of reprisals, because to the Protestants it was just a random list of stuff. However, it's thought to be a myth, because none of the secret meanings were specific to Catholicism.
3. Yet another theory is that it is indeed a love song, and the gifts are indeed sent to a lady by her true love. Some of the gifts do seem pretty unlikely and the theory goes that the pipers, drummers and ladies dancing are actually the entertainment at a wedding, and the milkmaids, laying Geese and leaping lords are fertility symbols. Partridge meat was an aphrodisiac and pears are heart shaped.
4. One line of the song is subject to copyright - the five gold rings line. That was first used in a version arranged by Frederic Austin in 1909 and the copyright in this version is owned by Novello and Co Ltd. The rest of it is an old French tune and in the public domain.
5. On the subject of five Gold rings, the gold rings are not actually jewellery as most people believe, but refer to the rings on the necks of Pheasants, meaning what the recipient actually gets is five pheasants - which kind of makes sense as all the other gifts up to the seventh day are birds.
6. A colly bird (or calling bird) is a Blackbird.
7. In Sussex, they sing a version where canaries are given instead of colly birds. The French lyrics include eight chewing Cows, three wooden branches and seven Windmills.
8. In Australia, there is a version where all the animals are replaced by creatures you could find in Australia, such as Kangaroos, Koalas, Wombats and Dingos, finishing up with a kookaburra in a gum tree.
9. The number of gifts is 364 - as well as the new gift each day, all the previous ones are given again as well.
10. The PNC financial services group runs an annual Christmas Index where it judges the price of goods and services by looking at the market price of buying all the gifts from Twelve Days. In 2013, all those gifts would have set you back £11,950 ($19,500).

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

24th December: Christmas Eve traditions from around the world

It's Christmas Eve. So here are 10 Christmas Eve customs from around the world.

1. Old England: Yule log. A huge log would be dragged into the house and lit with a sliver of last year's Yule log, which had been stored in the cellar all year as protection from fire. The resulting fire would burn out past wrongs; but it was considered very bad luck if anyone entered the room in bare feet while it was burning. A person with a squint or flat feet was also a bad omen.
2. New Forest: People would douse the Apple and Pear trees with cider to ensure a good harvest the following year.
3. Germany: not such a great place to be an apple tree, as there, the trees would be beaten to ensure a good harvest rather than having booze thrown at them. People there would leave a loaf of Bread out on the window sill nearest the church overnight. This would infuse the bread with healing powers and the family would eat it the next day.
4. Norway and Sweden: The traditional Christmas Eve meal is codfish treated with lye.
5. Former Czechoslovakia: People would tell tales about a mythical golden pig and eat cod's roe soup.
6. Venice: Here the traditional meal is Lasagne made with dried fruit, pine nuts and candied orange peel.
7. Nineteenth Century England: The game of snapdragon: brandy was poured over a dish of raisins and set alight. The object of the game was to pick a raisin out of the bowl using bare hands.
8. Finland: Ghosts of departed loved ones traditionally visit, so white candles are lit on family graves. Although in England, an old proverb says that a ghost will never appear on Christmas Eve - but it was a good idea to open all the doors on Christmas Eve and let negative energy out, just in case.
9. Old England: Divining of future husbands. Single girls would wear to church a Rose they had picked on Midsummers' Day and kept in white Paper. The man who came and took it from her would be her future husband. Forgot to pick a rose on Midsummer? Another spell involved baking a cake on Christmas Eve and marking your initials on it. By morning, the initials of your future spouse would have miraculously appeared.
10. Cornwall and Devon: It was believed that bees would hum the 100th psalm in their hives on Christmas Eve.

Happy Christmas!

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

23rd December: Night of the radishes

Today is the Night of The Radishes in Oaxaca in Mexico, which is basically a celebration centred around carvings made from radishes. The centrepiece of the whole festival is a nativity scene made entirely from radishes. So here are 10 things you might not know about them.

1. Radishes are members of the Brassicaceae family. Hence they are related to kale, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Horseradish and wasabi, a type of Japanese horseradish.
2. Varieties of radish include Bunny Tail, Sicily Giant, French Breakfast, Plum Purple, April Cross, Cherry Belle, Champion, Red King and White Icicle.
3. They are known as very quick growing plants - plant a radish seed and 25 days later you'll have edible radishes. The leaves are edible as well as the tubers.
4. Before Olive trees were introduced to Egypt, radish seeds were an important source of oil. Radishes, along with onions and garlic, were given in wages to the pyramid builders.
5. “As God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again,” says Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. She says this after eating a radish, the only food available at the time.
6. In 1979, scientists published a study in Psychological Reports: Effects of Holy Water on the Growth of Radish Plants. The conclusion? Holy water had no beneficial effects on the plants whatsoever.
7. Radishes are rich in ascorbic acid, folic acid, and Potassium. They are a good source of vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, Copper, and calcium. One cup of sliced red radish bulbs contains approximately 19 calories.
8. The Greeks believed that it is better to eat radishes before dinner, because they are good for the digestion.
9. Radishes grown during hot weather are hotter to the taste than radishes grown in cooler weather.
10. The weight of radishes sold in the UK last year was more than the weight of the Eiffel Tower.

22nd December: Night of Mistletoe

The Night of Mistletoe was a Celtic Druid holy day. Here are 10 things you might not know about mistletoe.

1. The name of the plant doesn't have a romantic origin. "Mistal" is an old Anglo-Saxon word for dung, and the "toe" part comes from "tan", meaning twig, so basically the word means "dung on a twig".
2. It's a parasite. Its seeds are covered in a sticky substance which attached to the beaks and feathers of the birds which eat them. The bird flies to another tree and wipes its beak on a branch, and the seed then sticks to the branch and germinates. This is not good news for the tree, which is likely to die earlier as a result of being infested with mistletoe. That said, mistletoe has an important place in nature. It provides food for a range of birds and animals (but not humans, as the berries are toxic to us), and a nesting spot for some species of bird and Squirrel. Dead trees provide nesting spots to still more species of bird.
3. There are 1,300 species of mistletoe in the world, 20 of which are endangered.
4. Although we tend to associate it with winter, most mistletoe species grow in tropical or sub-tropical areas.
5. Another name for mistletoe is "witches broom".
6. The mistletoe plant has no scent, so "mistletoe scented" candles or air fresheners are a con.
7. Why do people Kiss under the mistletoe? Nobody is really sure, but there are theories. In Norse mythology, an arrow made of mistletoe was the only thing that could kill Balder, the son of Odin and Frigg. When he was killed in this way, Frigg brought him back to life and it was she who commanded that people kiss under mistletoe as a reminder that love is stronger than death. There was a custom in ancient times that if two enemies met by chance in a forest under a ball of mistletoe, they would not attack each other but would call a truce until the next day, so kissing under it is a sign of friendship and goodwill. It's also associated with fertility.
8. Although the berries are toxic to us, dilute tea made from mistletoe was said to cure leprosy, epilepsy, worms, high blood pressure and even cancer. Don't try it at home, though! Mistletoe is also said to protect from fire and Lightning, and hanging it over a doorway stops ghosts and witches from entering the house.
9. Mistletoe grows mainly on Apple trees, but very occasionally it will grow on an Oak Tree. Because this is relatively rare, oak mistletoe was sacred to ancient Druids. They believed the berries were the sperm of the gods (hence the connection with fertility). They had a special ceremony for harvesting it which involved the chief Druid climbing the tree and cutting the mistletoe down with a golden scythe. Other Druids would catch it in a cloth. Then they would sacrifice two bulls. The ceremony still takes place in parts of England, although modern Druids have done away with the sacrifice bit.
10. Even today, mistletoe is banned from Christmas decorations in churches because of its association with Druids and pagan magic.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

21st December: Winter Solstice/Winter Begins

On the official first day of winter, 10 Quotes about winter.

1. A snowflake is Winter's butterfly.
2. Snowmen fall from heaven unassembled.
3. Many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it. Richard Adams
4. You can't get too much winter in the winter. Robert Frost
5. O, wind, if winter comes, can spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley
6. 'We were out walking one snowy morning soon after my eldest son learned to count. “It’s so cold today, it’s freezing,” I said. “It’s colder than that dad,” he said, “it’s fourzing.”' Letter in magazine
7. A snowstorm is the chalkdust from heavenly handwriting.
8. An artificial ski slope at Kidsgrove was closed yesterday because of snow and ice. Daily Telegraph
9. Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours." Robert Byrne
10. The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? JB Priestley

20th December: Go Caroling Day

Today is Go Caroling Day, so today, 10 facts about the Christmas Carols you might be singing today or at a carol service, and popular Christmas songs.

1. Carols were originally songs to be danced to. The word "carol" derives from the French word, "caroller" which means to dance in a circle. The verses in early carols were all the same length with a chorus in between to accommodate the dance steps.
2. The Medieval church encouraged the singing of carols, which at that time were popular tunes with religious lyrics. Wandering friars would go from town to town singing them. The most prolific carol composer of the day was James Ryman of Canterbury, who wrote 119 of them, which he collected in a manuscript dated 1492. 500 early carols survive, but most are just the lyrics, with no music attached to them. Many of these very old carols were lost forever when Oliver Cromwell banned the singing of jolly songs at Christmas. It wasn't until Victorian times that people started singing jolly Christmas tunes again.
3. The oldest carol still sung today is probably O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, which was originally written in the 9th century, probably by Gregorian monks. The original version was in Latin, and it was translated into English in 1851 by John Mason Neale.
4. Early carol singers would take a wassail bowl with them on their rounds. The bowl would be full of spiced ale or cider, and they would drink a toast to the health of each household they visited, often in return for money.
5. One of the very first songs broadcast on radio was O Holy Night. Canadian inventor Reginald Fessenden, argued by some to be the real inventor of radio instead of Marconi, played the tune on his violin and sang the final verse at his radio tower on Christmas Eve, 1906. Some sources say it was the first tune, others say it was the second, but whichever it was, it was picked up by receivers hundreds of miles away.
6. The first song to be performed in space was a Christmas song, too. During the Gemini 6 and 7 missions, as the two spacecraft passed close by each other, the astronauts in Gemini 6, Walter “Wally” Schirra Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford, transmitted that they had just seen a UFO consisting of a command module with eight smaller modules in front, in a polar orbit... and the pilot of the command module was wearing a red suit. Then they got out their harmonica and Christmas bells and launched into a rendition of Jingle Bells.
7. In the original version of I Saw Three Ships, the ships were carrying the skulls of the three wise men.
8. Silent Night, it is claimed, was written for a choir of children to sing in church without accompaniment because the organ was broken - although there is no actual record of a broken organ or a children's choir in its documented history. We do know, though, that it was written in 1918 by Father Joseph Mohr (lyrics) and Franz Xaver Gruber (tune); that it has been translated into 140 languages; was declared an “intangible cultural heritage” by Unesco in 2011; and that it was sung during the Christmas Truce of 1914 as it was the only song all the troops knew, albeit in several different languages.
9. Several Christmas songs have a fair amount of artistic licence in them. Jingle Bells was originally written for Thanksgiving and Deck the Halls for New Year's Eve; O Come All Ye Faithful was originally written about the birth of Bonnie Prince Charlie; Good King Wenceslas was actually a duke; there is no reference to angels singing in the Bible; and on a more secular note, the New York Police Department doesn't have a choir.
10. Some of the best known Christmas songs, including Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree and Holly Jolly Christmas were written by Johnny Marks, who was Jewish and didn't celebrate Christmas.

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle

19th December: A Christmas Carol Day

Charles Dickens's yuletide tale was first published on this day in 1843. Here are 10 things you might not know...

1. In the beginning, Dickens set out to write a political pamphlet promoting charitable giving and educational reform . However, Dickens realised that a poignant story would be more effective than a political essay, and so he wrote A Christmas Carol instead.
2. The book took six weeks to write.
3. Dickens was fed up with his publisher because his previous novel, Martin Chuzzlewit, hadn't made as much money as he would have liked, so he paid for the publication himself. So you could argue that A Christmas Carol was a self-published novel (Death and Faxes is in good company...) However, Dickens still didn't make as much money as he had hoped. He wanted £1,000 (£86,000 in today's money) but only made £230 (£20,000). High production costs of the early editions were partly to blame.
4. The first edition was bound in red cloth and had gilt edged pages and some expensive etchings as illustrations. It was priced at five shillings (25p) which in today's money would be quite expensive for a novella at £21. Nevertheless, the first print run of 6,000 sold out by Christmas.
5. Dickens' profits were eaten away by legal costs when he sued Parley's Illuminated Library for pirating the story. Dickens won the case, but Parley's never paid up. They declared themselves bankrupt and Dickens was left with a legal bill for £700, and since the book only made £230, that was his profit gone and then some.
6. A Christmas Carol was well received by critics of the day, even those who had slammed Dickens novels in the past. "If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were ever in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease," wrote Thomas Hood. "A national benefit and to every man or woman who reads it, a personal kindness," wrote William Makepeace Thackeray. Theodore Martin, usually very hostile to Dickens, wrote "finely felt and calculated to work much social good".
7. The most severe criticisms levelled at the book were to do with the cost of it, and the fact that poor people, like the Cratchits, would not have been able to afford to buy it. The New Monthly Magazine said it should be printed on cheap paper and sold for much less.
8. Encouraged by the critical success of the book, Dickens tried to re-create the magic by writing a new Christmas book every year, producing The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man and The Ghost's Bargain. Although they sold well, they weren't as popular with the critics and Dickens was disappointed with them, so in 1849, he gave up and wrote David Copperfield instead.
9. Public readings of the tale were very popular and Dickens read an abridged version aloud to no less than 127 audiences. Captain Corbett-Smith read it to the troops in the trenches of World War I.
10. Stage and film adaptations abound. A stage play was produced the year after the book was published, and there have been many more, as well as 28 film versions. Actors who have played Scrooge in the various films, plays and TV adaptations include Albert Finney, Alastair Sim, Roddy McDowell, Roger Daltrey, Tim Curry, Jim Dale, Kelsey Grammer, Michael Caine and Jim Carrey. There have also been versions with a twist, including Blackadder's Christmas Carol (Ebenezer Blackadder starts out as a kind and generous person and turns mean) Whatever Happened to Tiny Tim? by John Mortimer (Tiny Tim grows up and becomes a rich man but even more miserable than Scrooge and so Scrooge's ghost has to try and save him) and I am Scrooge: A Zombie Story for Christmas (in which Tiny Tim's illness is an infectious virus that will bring about a zombie apocalypse).

My Christmas Novella!

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Available from Createspace, Amazon and Amazon Kindle