25 December: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Merry Christmas! Here are ten fcts about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

1. Rudolph is usually depicted as the youngest of Santa's Reindeer. The story goes that the other reindeer would make fun of his Red nose, until Santa discovered that Rudolph’s red nose would guide his sleigh through Fog. Although in his first appearance, Rudolph’s nose is used to light the way in dark houses, so Santa won’t trip over the carpet and fall on his bottom!

2. The character was created by Robert May, a copywriter for Montgomery Ward. He was given the job, in early 1939, of coming up with the story for the annual Colouring leaflet handed out to kids who came to visit Santa. That summer, his wife died from cancer, leaving him a widower with a 4-year-old daughter. May insisted on finishing the project even though his boss suggested giving it to someone else. May would later say that working on Rudolph helped him through a difficult time. The store even gave him the copyright in 1947 when he was having financial troubles.

3. The inspiration for Rudolph came from the reindeer that May’s daughter loved to visit at the zoo. While staring out of his window trying to come up with a story, a thick fog rolled in and the idea was born.

4. He almost had glowing red Eyes instead of a red nose, but May ultimately decided a red nose was funnier. Rudolph could have been called Rollo, Reginald, Romeo or Rodney. Rollo was rejected for sounding too sunny and happy; Reginald for sounding too British!

5. At first, the red nose story didn’t go down too well. In those days, having a red nose usually signified that a person was a drunk. When management rejected the idea, May asked his illustrator friend at Montgomery Ward, Denver Gillen, to draw a "cute reindeer" which went a long way towards changing their minds.

6. The song wasn’t written until 1949. It was written by May's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, who was also the composer of several other Christmas songs, including I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Silver and Gold, and A Holly Jolly Christmas. Marks, however, was Jewish and didn’t even celebrate Christmas. Gene Autry was the first to record it, although he nearly turned it down; he only made the recording because his wife persuaded him.

7. According to the BBC in 1999, Rudolph has fauns of his own, including one called Robbie, who was a victim of Blitzen’s jealousy. It’s never explicitly stated that Robbie is Rudolph’s son because Rudolph is still under copyright and either the BBC couldn’t get permission to use the name or they were too tight to pay for it. This had changed by 2014 when a Doctor Who Christmas special featured a live-action Rudolph who Santa could park like a car and turn his nose off.

8. He has been the subject of an academic paper. In 2015, Nathaniel Dominy, an anthropology professor at Dartmouth College, which incidentally is the same one Robert May attended, published a paper explaining how Rudolph’s nose could guide a sleigh through fog. Dominy noted that reindeer eyes can perceive shorter wavelengths of light than humans, allowing them to see ultraviolet light, but when it’s foggy, ultraviolet light is scattered which would temporarily blind the reindeer. Rudolph's red nose emits longer-wavelength red light, and penetrates the fog more easily.

9. A series of Postage stamps featuring Rudolph was issued by the United States Postal Service in 2014.

10. He’s even starred in a comic book. The company that would become DC Comics published a series of 13 annuals titled Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1950-1962.

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 Amazon and Amazon Kindle

19 December: Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Today is A Christmas Carol Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

1. The words to Hark the Herald Angels Sing were written by Charles Wesley, an English Methodist leader and hymn writer. Wesley wrote over 6,000 hymns, more than any other male writer (a woman called Fanny Crosby wrote 8,000).

2. He was inspired to write it when he heard church bells ringing on his way to a Christmas Day service.

3. It first appeared in print in 1739 as part of his brother John’s collection, Hymns and Sacred Poems.

4. These words, however, were different from the ones we sing today. Wesley actually wrote it as “Hark, How All the Welkin Rings, Glory to the King of kings”. “Welkin” is an old English word for “the expanse of the heavens.” In 1753 a student of Wesley’s, George Whitfield, altered the words to read “Hark the Herald Angels Sing, glory to the newborn king.”

5. The Wesley brothers were not impressed. While they were happy for others to reprint their hymns, they wanted them reproduced exactly as written and wished “they would not attempt to mend them; for they really are not able.” At the very least, the printer should “add the true reading in the margin, or at the bottom of the page” so that “we may no longer be accountable either for the nonsense or for the doggerel of other men.”

6. Charles Wesley originally intended this hymn to be sung to the same tune as his Easter hymn Christ the Lord Is Risen Today, because to him, Christ’s birth and resurrection were connected, and he wanted to make that point.

7. The tune with which we are familiar was written by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840. He didn’t intend it to be used for sacred purposes at all. He wrote the tune to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of Gutengberg’s printing press and it was first sung, with words on that subject, by two hundred men, accompanied by two brass bands in Leipzig town square, as a new statue of Gutenberg was unveiled. Mendelssohn could tell it would be a popular tune and was perfectly okay with people using different words. “If the right words are hit at,” he said, “I am sure that piece will be liked very much by the singers and the hearers.” Except he drew the line at the church using it for a sacred song. “It will never do to sacred words,” he said. “There must be a national and merry subject found out, something to which the soldierlike and buxom motion of the piece has some relation.”

8. The hymn is used every year for The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College, Cambridge, and also, with a lesser known arrangement, as the recessional hymn of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. In Dublin they use the tune See, the Conqu'ring hero comes from Handel's Judas Maccabaeus, normally associated with the hymn Thine Be the Glory.

9. This carol is the climax to A Charlie Brown Christmas, first broadcast in 1965.

10. It has been covered by many artists. At least 150 versions of it are available for download on iTunes.

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 Amazon and Amazon Kindle

27 December: French hens

On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Three French hens:

1. In some versions of the song, it’s ‘Three Fat Hens’ rather than French ones.

2. Why French hens, though? Possibly because the Latin name for the domestic Chicken is Gallus gallus, and the Roman na
   me for France was Gaul, and the rooster has long been a symbol of France.

3. A rooster was often a decorative ornament on church bell towers in France during the Middle Ages, and the Gallic Rooster was an important symbol during the French Revolution.

4. There are about 40 breed of chicken that originated in France and were prized as dinner birds.

5. One of these is called the Bresse, This breed has Blue legs, a White body and a Red comb, ie the colours of the French flag, and was known as 'queen of poultry.'

6. La Fleche is another ancient French breed from the Loire region of western France, renowned for its delicate flesh.

7. Another is The Faverolles, a breed developed in the 1860s in north-central France, in the vicinity of the villages of Houdan and Faverolles.

8. Finally, the Houdan breed is one the oldest French breeds, and was named after the town of Houdan to the west of Paris.

9. Another possible explanation is a story about King Henri IV and the poule au pot, whose declared aim when he brought peace to France was that the peasants would be able to cook a chicken every Sunday.

10. Another theory about the 12 Days of Christmas is that each gift has a religious meaning, and the 3 French hens represent the three gifts of the Spirit that abide: Faith, Hope and Love.

25 December: The Nativity

Happy Christmas! Here are 10 facts about the Nativity:

1. The word Nativity comes from the Latin verb nasci, which means “to be born.”

2. Chances are the nativity didn’t actually happen on December 25^th. The Bible doesn't indicate the time of the year that Jesus was born, and the date was decided upon by the church in the 4^th century. In all probability Jesus was either born in the spring during lambing time or on June 17, when modern astrologers pinpointed a likely candidate for the Star of Bethlehem.

3. Our concept of Christ’s birth comes from two of the gospels – Matthew and Luke’s Gospel. The Gospels of Mark and John start with Jesus as an adult.

4. Jesus probably wasn't born in a stable. It was just as likely to have happened in a cave or the lower room of a relative’s house, albeit one where they kept their animals at night.

5. Talking of animals, The Bible never mentions any animals being there at the birth, so the cattle, Donkeys and Sheep that feature in a nativity scene aren’t exactly Biblical.

6. Neither is it Biblical for the shepherds and the wise men to all be there at the same time. In fact, the wise men probably didn’t visit Jesus until he was a toddler.

7. Nor is it mentioned anywhere in the Bible that there were three of them. It is merely assumed there were three because of the three gifts.

8. Neither is it mentioned that the herald Angels sing. Rather, Luke says they were “praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest’”.

9. Nativity scenes were first popularised by St Francis of Assisi in 1223. He got permission from the Pope at the time, Honorious III, to set up a scene to bring the Christmas story to life for people who couldn’t read.

10. St. Bonaventure, St. Francis’ biographer, claimed that the hay used by St. Francis in the first nativity scene could miraculously cure cattle of diseases.

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.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

19 December: Away in a Manger

On A Christmas Carol Day, 10 things you might not know about the popular carol Away in a Manger:

1. It’s widely believed that Martin Luther wrote the original lyrics as a poem in German to his children in the early 1500s.

2. However, more recently it has been suggested the carol is of American origin, created by German Lutherans in Pennsylvania in about 1885, when it appeared in a book called Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families, a Sunday school collection published that year.

3. Prior to this, it had been printed in a Boston newspaper, in 1882, and titled Luther’s Cradle Song.

4. At that time, it only had two verses. The third verse didn’t appear in print until 1892, in Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs, compiled by gospel composer Charles H. Gabriel. It wasn’t attributed to anyone, and it’s thought that one of the publishers added it because they thought it should end with a prayer.

5. Evidence that Martin Luther didn’t write the words has been put forward by Rev. Carlton Young, editor of the UM Hymnal. He said that the German version of the carol must have been translated from English because the metrics are not natural to the German language. No-one has ever found an original German version by Martin Luther. It’s also been said that Away in a Manger was too sweet and soppy to be Martin Luther’s style.

6. It’s thought that this likely myth came about because 1883 was the 400^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth.

7. The tunes most commonly used are Cradle Song by William J. Kirkpatrick (1895) and Mueller by James Ramsey Murray (1887).

8. There are in existence about 200 tunes these words have been sung to.

9. The lyric “no crying he makes” is considered heresy by some, because it suggests that the Little Lord Jesus behaved differently to any other human baby and it therefore suggests He wasn’t fully human. However, it’s apparently normal for a newborn baby to be woken by nearby sounds, in this case cattle lowing, and not cry unless there’s a reason like hunger, discomfort or needing a nappy change.

10. In Britain, it is one of the most popular carols; a 1996 Gallup Poll ranked it joint second.

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.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

11 December: Fairytale of New York

Christmas is coming and Christmas music is everywhere! Today, 10 facts about the Christmas classic, Fairytale of New York.

1. The song is allegedly the result of a bet. Pogues producer Elvis Costello bet Shane MacGowan and co-writer Jem Finer, the band’s banjoist, that they couldn’t come up with a Christmas record that wasn’t slushy.

2. Initially the song was going to be about a sailor in New York looking out over the ocean and reminiscing about being back home in Ireland. Finer's wife Marcia didn’t like that idea and suggested new lyrics regarding a conversation between a couple who’d fallen on hard times at Christmas.

3. Originally the female vocalist was going to be Pogues bassist Cait O’Riordan. However, she left the band before the song was recorded. MacGowan suggested Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde as a possible replacement. However, for a test recording, producer Steve Lillywhite, who asked his wife, Kirsty MacColl, to sing the part to get an idea of how the duet might work. They liked her performance and so she got the job. Since MacColl's death in 2000, other vocalists to sing the part Katie Melua, Sinead O'Connor and banjo player Jem Finer's daughter Ella.

4. The lyrics mention: “The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay.” However, there is no such thing as the NYPD choir. The NYPD doesn’t have a choir, but it does have an Irish pipe band who featured in the music video. Only they didn’t know Galway Bay and so they played the Mickey Mouse Club March instead.

5. The title is lifted from J. P. Donleavy’s novel A Fairy Tale of New York, which was chosen after the song had been written and recorded. Finer was reading this book at the time and had left it lying around the recording studio. The plot concerns Irish-American Cornelius Christian's return to New York after studying in Ireland.

6. Shane MacGowan doesn’t actually play the Piano in the video. The pianist is James Fearnley, who had to wear Shane’s rings for the close-up shots of his hands.

7. The cop who arrests MacGowan in the video is played by Matt Dillon.

8. The song was recorded in July, in sweltering heat, and not in New York, but at RAK Studios near Regents Park in London.

9. Shane MacGowan was born on Christmas Day.

10. The song went to number two in the UK charts when it was first released in 1987. It was kept off the top spot by the Pet Shop Boys’ Always on my Mind. MacGowan commented: “We were beaten by two queens and a drum machine.”

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.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

4 December: Santa's List Day

 Today is Santa’s List Day. Here are ten facts about Santa's List:

1. Celebrated annually on 4 December, this is said to be the day that Santa Claus makes his list of children who’ve been naughty and children who’ve been nice.

2. Also it’s the day when children start making their wish lists of things they want for Christmas.

3. The first mention of a naughty and nice list occurs in the song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, written in 1934 by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.

4. The lyric goes “He’s making a list, He’s checking it twice, He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”

5. The idea of kids being naughty or nice and it having consequences regarding what they got for Christmas may have come from 16th century Holland. Parents placed their children’s clogs near the fireplace. Good children would find candy or cookies on their clogs. Naughty children, however, would find a lump of Coal.

6. How does Santa even know which list to put a kid on? Well, according to The Elf on the Shelf, a children's book published in 2005, the elves are spying on them. Elves visit people's houses from just after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, and report back to Santa each night about who has been naughty or nice.

7. For parents, it can be used to encourage positive behaviour in their children leading up to the holiday season.

8. It serves as a gentle reminder that the true magic of Christmas lies in the joy of spreading love, kindness, and goodwill to others.

9. Santa’s List is a song by Cliff Richard, featured on Cliff Richard’s album, Cliff at Christmas.

10. In the song Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt (1953), the singer is convinced that she’s been a good girl this year and expects Santa to bring her a whole list of (very expensive) gifts.

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.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle

3 December: Do They Know It's Christmas?

On this date in 1984, the group assembled by Bob Geldof, Band-Aid, released the single Do They Know It's Christmas.

1. Bob Geldof got the idea for a Christmas charity single in October 1984 when watching a BBC report about the famine in Ethiopia at the time, including a nurse who had to decide which children to give the inadequate supplies of food and medicine to, and which were too sick to try and save. He got in touch with Midge Ure and ran the idea by him. Ure agreed to work on an arrangement while Geldof recruited the artists.

2. Had they recorded a cover version of an existing Christmas song, they would have had to pay royalties, which would reduce the amount of Money they could send to charity, so they knew they would have to write a completely new song. As it happened, Geldof had some lyrics for a song he'd written for the Boomtown Rats, called It's My World, which he figured he could tweak a bit. Ure wrote a melody and they put the two together. Geldof at first complained that the tune sounded like the theme from Z-Cars. Ure changed one thing in the lyric – to substitute "Africa" for "Ethiopia" because the latter didn't scan.

3. Geldof's plan was to get on board all the biggest names in pop music in Britain and Ireland at the time. He recruited them by calling the stars direct rather than going through their agents or managers. Only three of the people Geldof called refused to take part. Geldof never revealed who they were. There were a few who couldn't participate because of prior engagements, but who contributed in other ways. David Bowie and Paul McCartney recorded spoken word verses for the B-side single, Feed the World, and The Thompson Twins donated part of the proceeds of their then current single Lay Your Hands on Me to the Action for Ethiopia charity.

4. It wasn't just the artists who contributed for free. Geldof managed to negotiate the use of a recording studio for 24 hours and free advertising space. He even managed to persuade the BBC to start all their programmes 5 minutes early one evening, so that Top of the Pops could feature the promo, even though the song hadn't charted yet. He didn't, however, manage to persuade the UK government to waive VAT on the single. Geldof made headlines by publicly standing up to then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the issue. In the end the government relented and donated an amount to the charity equal to the amount of tax they collected on the single.

5. Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, the two frontmen of rock band Status Quo were invited to take part in order to appeal to an older audience. However, the line Geldof had in mind for them to sing turned out to be too high for their voices. According to one journalist, however, Status Quo contributed something to the after recording party – a bag of cocaine.

6. On the whole the recording session went smoothly with the biggest glitch being that Boy George didn't show up. Geldof tracked him down and discovered he was asleep in a hotel room in New York, having forgotten all about it. He gave Boy George an earful and demanded he get straight onto Concorde. George allegedly went back to sleep and later caught the last Concorde of the day, arriving at the studio at 6pm and being the last of the artists to perform their bit. Members of the US group Kool and the Gang appeared just happened to be at the studio when Geldof arrived to pitch the idea, and got on board. There were a couple of uninvited guests on the recording day as well. One was Marilyn, whose career was flagging at the time and he thought he could revive interest by appearing on Do They Know It's Christmas? Geldof and Ure took the view that any publicity was good publicity and the more stars they could get to appear on the record, the better. They drew the line, however, with actor Nigel Planer, who showed up to play to the cameras as his character Neil from The Young Ones, and was told to go away.

7. While the promotional video shows all the artists singing together in the studio, it wasn't recorded like that. They all recorded their parts individually and staged the singing together part.

8. Even Jim Diamond, who probably would have had the Christmas number one that year with I Should Have Known Better, urged people to buy Do They Know It's Christmas? instead. The single went straight to number one and remained there for five weeks, going on to sell 3.8 million copies in the UK and 12 million worldwide. In all, more than $28 million was raised.

9. Do They Know It's Christmas? has been re-recorded three times: in 1989, 2004 and 2014. All were for charity. The 2014 version was a little different in that the cause which benefited was people affected by the ebola virus rather than famine relief. The first line is sung by Paul Young on the 1984 version, Kylie Minogue on the 1989 version, Chris Martin of Coldplay on the 2004 version, and One Direction on the 2014 version.

10. The song has influenced media other than music, too. In 2017, director James Ward Byrkit was reportedly considering producing a movie called Do They Know It’s Murder? in which one of the artists is murdered and Bob Geldof has to turn detective to work out whodunnit; and there is a time travel novel by James Crookes called Do They Know It's Christmas Yet? in which a bunch of people travel back to the 80s and accidentally caused Bob Geldof to miss the news report which inspired the song. They must travel back again and put things right.

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.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle