Ye Olde Christmas

There is much to do before the 25th December which means many of us turn into a Yuleshard (Someone who leaves Christmas preparations to the last possible moment) such as all the cooking, buying presents and just in case people drop by unexpectedly, a quick bout of Scurryfunging (Hastily tidying the house).
Obviously all that has to wait until the Pourboire (Money set aside specifically for drink) has been spent although due to the cost of Christmas, many decide to be Bummocks (brew for specifically Christmas) to save a few quid .
Not that it is a thing where I live on the South Coast where it can be very Blenky (Snow sparingly) but if i woke up in December to a Ningiud landscape (Snow Covered) and cold enough to get Clinkerbell's (Icicle's), I would be Meggling (walk through snow) and Hogamdog (roll a snowball in the snow) to make snowmen with although i understand some people don't like those conditions and prefer to Hiemate (Stay somewhere warm) wrapped up in Mufflements (Warm clothes) but that's up to them, they are denying themselves a good old 'Apolausticism'  (Enjoying yourself).
To me Christmas is more about the build up rather than the day itself but that isn't to say I'm not happy to see someone 'Doniferous' (Carrying a gift) and although i won't partake of Bubbly-jock (Turkey) due to being Vegetarian, i fill up on Vegetables instead and can still get the Crapulence (feeling full) and spend the afternoon on the sofa waiting for the Overquat (uncomfortable feeling having overeaten) to pass while the rest of the family Crawmass (Picking through remnants of a festive meal).  
Once all the commotion of the day is over I do like to sit outside, look at the Yulestarn (Bright Christmas star) and have a nice Nog (Strong, dark beer) with the family and promise not to be so Yuleshardy next year.

Tis The Season To Say Strange Things

Christmas really is the most wonderful time of the year and it is so special that we seem to have words which we only hear uttered this time of year.
At no point in the other 11 months of the year do we deck anything, in January to November we just decorate, adorn or even furnish our hall but in December it is specifically 'Decked' and Figgy Pudding sounds like something full of Figs, which it isn't, no Figs were in it whatsoever but why we sing about it in the song and not change it to Christmas Pudding is a strange one, both have four syllables so swapping out Figgy for Christmas would still scan.
We don't listen at Christmas, we 'Hark' be it we are harking Herald Angels sing or the neighbour singing 'I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday' in such a way that Roy Wood would sue them.
An animals feeding trough is a manger for the month and we turn our dictionaries back to the 16th Century version to say 'Ye' and how 'Tis the season to be Merry' which leads to the question why can we only be Merry this season? Can't we be Merry in Summer or Spring or can we only be Happy in those Seasons?   
Wassailing sounds like some sort of torture although if you had me me massacre 'O Holy Night' then you would probably agree but Caroling sounds much better and how much jollier would the News sound if was called Tidings.
It is also the only time of the year that you can hum along to a Cliff Richards song without dying of embarrassment if someone over-harked you. 

Shock Celebrity Photo In Epstein Release

The Department of Justice's website was so busy yesterday that journalists were placed in a queue for access to the released Epstein files although once we got there, we seemed to be staring at more black rectangles than anything else but all the expected names and faces were there and nobody was surprised to see the likes of  Bill Clinton and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor but there was one celebrity that bought sharp gasps in the newsroom.
There with his arm around a smiling Jeffrey Epstein was the beloved children's favourite, Winnie the Pooh.
Obviously it goes without saying that inclusion in the Epstein files does not suggest wrongdoing but it is hard to see how the Hundred Acre Wood resident can survive this association with one of history's most prolific convicted child sex offender's who died in prison while awaiting sentencing in 2019.  
We have approached Mr W. Pooh  for comment but have yet to receive a statement with regards to this unsettling revelation.

Hiya 3i/ATLAS

It's the closest approach of what we have come to call 3i/ATLAS which is an interstellar comet...or is it?
Speculation has been growing that rather than a massive ball of ice careening around the Milky Way for the last few billion of years, the thing 168 million miles away is actually 'a hostile alien threat' according to Harvard Scientist, Professor Avi Loeb.
He has pointed out the changing colour and acceleration as well as the parallel jets which indicate technological propulsion which when taken all together, points to an alien spacecraft which is on a trajectory to study the Planets of the Solar System while staying far enough away to avoid close detection by Earthlings armed with powerful telescopes.
So are we going to wake up today and discover lots of little green men with red glowing fingers asking us to 'phone home' or not I asked Open University's Physics and Astronomy Department and apparently it's a firm not.
'This object is a comet. It looks and behaves like a comet. All evidence points to it being a comet' explained the spoilsports so how do they explain the changing colour?
'Oddities in nucleus properties like composition, shape, or structure which would have been acquired from its host system or over its long interstellar journey' which makes sense i guess so maybe we don't have to worry about that question I have often pondered on if they ask to be taken to our leader.
Then again, if i was an alien coming to Earth to have a nose around and see if we need to be vapourised out of existence then i would make my Spaceship Comet shaped and behave like a Comet until the moment i landed and began herding humans into cages so who knows.
I would avoid the UK though because it seems like everyone here is going down with colds and Flu and we know what happened in War of the Worlds when the advanced Alien invaders were defeated by people sneezing at them so maybe we should keep some snotty nosed kids on standby, just in case.

America Back On Regime Change Trail

Donald Trump has been threatening a land strike on Venezuela for months and while the military build up off the coast continues, he shot in the face everyone who argued with me that it wasn't about oil by saying: 'They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back' which in my reckoning makes it all about oil, apology accepted warmongering right wing dingbats.
Removing Maduro and installing a much more USA friendly leader such as María Corina Machado who will get the oil pumping towards Washington seems to be the call then but if the US goes down the regime change road, it will not be for the first time.
In the last 80 years, Washington has overthrown many foreign regimes and found the removing part easy but not so much the getting the expected outcome they wanted and in recent memory we have had the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Removing them were easy but after two decades of insurgency they left Afghanistan with their tail between their legs and with the Taliban back in power and Iraq became a hotbed of terrorism and gave birth to ISIS as well as being a gift for Iran.
Military intervention in Libya in 2011 removed Muammar Gaddafi but it is yet to become a viable state as it is now controlled by the very people they were fighting against in Iraq and now we are waiting for the Venezuelan misadventure to begin and if the plan is for an invasion party happens, then that would require the US to prepare to pay a hefty price in American and Venezuelan blood.
How would a forced change of regime affect the character of Venezuela who it is unlikely will greet America as a liberator and more likely a murderous bully going to war to control their resources.
The buzz is that the much anticipated attack will come within days as a way to bury the bad news of the Epstein Files which are to be released imminently and will incriminate Trump even more than it already has so on we go onto the latest bout of American regime change in oil rich countries under the flimsiest of justifications.  

Merry Crimble??

Christmas goes by many names – from the traditional shortening ‘Xmas’, to the French ‘noel’ and the Germanic ‘yule’, through to informal nicknames like ‘Crimbo’. But a new YouGov poll reveals that not all these terms fill everybody with festive cheer.
68% dislike hearing it called Crimble, 58% Yuletide, 57% The Festive Season', 55% Holiday Season, 48% Xmas and 40% dislike the term Crimbo.    
89% of Britons celebrate Christmas with 34% saying they 'love it' 39% saying they like it but 9% say they dislike the whole thing.
The most acceptable time for shops to start putting up displays is late November, but for people’s own homes it is early December and 76% have an artificial tree and 18% a real one and 15% of Brits will forego the washing up and dine out on Christmas Day
Over half (53%) of parents will buy their kids clothes, shoes and accessories this year and 39% will buy Board games, card games and puzzles, books, journals and diaries.  Only 14% of parents will be buying musical instruments.
62% say they watch at least 1 Christmas film and 57% will eat Turkey on the big day and 41% will have Christmas pudding for dessert,
Silent Night is the nation’s favourite Christmas carol, All I Want for Christmas Is You the favourite Christmas song, and Elf the favourite Christmas film.
The average spent is £550 and 40% say they are worried about the impact of Christmas on their personal finances and it is split 50/50 with whether to call the Jolly present bringer Santa Claus or Father Christmas.

Smiley/Sad Face

I find anything to do with Computers mind-numbing and really don't care how or why they work but years ago i sit in on a lecture by the British Psychological Society (BPS) about 'Psychology and the Virtual World' because i thought it sounded interesting. Turned out it wasn't because it was all about how websites can use Psychology to make themselves more appealing, something they called Cyberpsychology.  
This must have been mid 2010's i guess and looking at my notes it seems i either fell asleep or noticed something more interesting out of the window because they are very sparse but piecing together my scribblings i can see that Cyberpsychology is the scientific study of our psychological experiences with digital technologies and aspects of the internet.
Yep, a yawnfest indeed but according to them: 'It is important because in contemporary society, technology and the internet form such an important part of our everyday experiences. Technology is very much a part of how we socialise, how we entertain ourselves, how we work, and how we learn. Psychology is all about understanding human thought and behaviour, but critically we want to know how this works in 21st Century society. This is where cyberpsychology can give us a unique perspective about contemporary human behaviour.' Apparently.
I did have notes on emoji's and how we process them because they are a significant part of online communication and people’s expression of emotion.
According to whoever it was, we process them in the way we do with other emotional stimuli such as faces or emotion words. We can use methods from other areas of psychology such as cognitive psychology to test this experimentally. Generally, what we are finding is that on an unconscious level, we don’t seem to process emoji like other emotional stimuli. And that’s really interesting in itself'.
To them maybe, not so much to me because i drew a little smiley face which was more ACIIIIIIID from the 90s than the smiley emoji face they were thinking of but certain personality traits seem to be related to the type of emoji people use based on extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and neuroticism.
The most common used Emoji and Personality Clues to the people who use them are:

Happy/Smiling Faces (😊, 😄): Often linked to being agreeable, conscientious, and open; they add positive emotional tone, making communication clearer.
Heart Emojis (❤️, 🥰): Strong indicators of high agreeableness, showing warmth and affection.
Positive Emojis (🔥, 🎉): Indicate an energetic, enthusiastic, and hype personality, bringing energy to messages.
Negative Emojis (😠, 😥): Can correlate with higher neuroticism or mood instability, though they're also used to avoid awkwardness.
Thinking Face (🤔): May suggest deeper thought or intellectual curiosity, although not always linked to specific Big Five traits in studies.
Praying Hands/Monkey (🙏, 🙈): Can suggest a tactile nature.

I hardly ever use emojis which apparently shows 'discomfort with intimacy and distance themselves from emotional expression in digital messages', or i'd go with feel that there are no need for them if you write the email clearly in the first place.

What Happened Don?

Don't know what could have happened but over the last 12 months the Global view of the U.S. have worsened and views of China have improved
Surveyed by Pew Research on what they think of the two leaders of both Superpowers  to do the right thing regarding world affairs, the obese, orange sex pest in the White House is dropping faster than shares in a Trump Casino at 22% and the last time the American President was less trusted than the Chinese President, currently 25%, was in 2020, the last year of the first Trump Presidency.   
The small handed criminals reputation is worst in Germany where 18% of Adults have confidence in Trump but 25% trust Xi and he didn't come out much better when asked who was the biggest threat to Peace , in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the U.S. is the second-most commonly named threat after Russia). People in Spain name the U.S. as their top threat about as often as they name Russia. The U.S. is the most commonly cited as the greatest threat in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico and i would expect Venezuelans are not keen on him if they were asked.
In Australia, Japan and the U.S., people name most frequently name China as the country posing the greatest threat.
The pussy grabbing liar doesn't fare much better in his own country with most Americans (63%) not trusting Trump and even his own AI Truth Social chatbot calls him a liar so bit awkward for him when asked  about whether he is trustworthy, replied that 'Major fact-checkers, courts, and official investigations have documented numerous false claims by Donald Trump over many years'.
Not to worry though, only another 3 years if he lasts that long and judging by the many medical diagnosis by amateur medical medics online, he will be lucky to see New Year.

Climate Change = Crap Tasting Coffee

Climate Change is bringing some scary things with Mother Nature getting ready to ramp it up further but if the thought of us all being wiped out by floods, droughts and extreme weather doesn't do it for you, maybe the thought of missing on on your morning coffee will.
The snappily titled 'UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Office of Climate Change, Biodiversity and Environment' have been pointing to the findings from World Coffee Research that found that by 2050, the land area suitable for Arabica coffee production could shrink by 50% with all of the main production nations in Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia and Colombia becoming increasingly hot and dry and unsuitable for cultivation due to Climate Change.
'Without swift and substantial action, the viability of coffee as a global commodity could be in jeopardy. The impacts are already being felt with global coffee prices surging , driven by weather disruptions in major producing countries' they explained.
Coffee experts (who knew they were a thing?) warn that without both climate mitigation and serious adaptation, coffee will become scarcer and more expensive, with supply chains disrupted and quality eroded, or 'flavour-flation' where taste suffers.
Another snappily titled office, 'The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service' has described Brazil as enduring its: 'most intense and widespread drought in history,' with serious consequences for coffee flowering and yields in the 2024–2025 season and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agree that their own study found that since 2000, increased evaporation driven by higher temperatures underscoring that climate change is intensifying drought beyond simple rainfall shortages.
Dr. Ernesto Méndez, co-director of something called the Institute for Agroecology and professor of agroecology at the University of Vermont, spelt it out that: 'There’s no question that climate change is affecting coffee regions and communities around the world. Coffee shrubs are very sensitive to weather conditions for their development. For a coffee plant to flower, it needs to have just the right amount of moisture and temperature. The right conditions are also necessary for the flowers to set and then become the coffee cherries that are harvested.'
There you go then, join the fight against Climate Change or face the very real prospect of paying much more for a crappy tasting cup of Coffee.

Far Right Religious Crusade

For some reason, the right wing seem to have a monopoly on being religious, to be fair most of the left wouldn't touch it with a 10ft Prayer candle and are far too busy trying to make the World a better place through drinking latte and wearing T-Shirts that say: 'No-one has been stoned to death by atheists', but i always assumed that if Jesus was alive today, he almost certainly wouldn't be right wing.
For some reason it is the political right who have adopted the beardy one and his dad for their side which is a bit puzzling and a view echoed today by the Church of England Bishop who said that the carol service in central London orchestrated by Tommy Morrison to 'put Christ back in Christmas' is an attempt to: 'Subvert the faith so that it serves his purpose'.
Robinson (real name Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) apparently found God while serving in prison for perverting the course of justice again and is now trying to spread the word that what God really wants is for him to organise an event in his name and for him to sell other right wing mugs St George’s flags and Santa hats.
Attendance figures have been out at 1,000 by MET Police but approximately a third of them were 'Stand Up To Racism' protesters who were reminded by Yaxley-Lennon that: 'I want to remind everyone this is a religious celebration, this is not a political event'.
Without doubt Jesus would be part of the crowd jeering him alongside the army of priests who were heckling the speaker (Jesus was a migrant etc etc) and going around the crowd handing out leaflets to attendees which gave details of who to contact if they really wanted to speak to learn about Christianity.
Does seem to have become more of a thing on the hate spreading far right with the likes of Donald Trump hoping his dalliances with a renown pedophile and numerous sex assaults he has conducted are overlooked by the big guy and though religion and Brits go together as well as a bacon sandwich vendor outside a synagogue, the do seem to be trying to make Christian nationalism a thing.
Nigel Farage, recently surgically removed from Donald Trump's Colon, has began to talk up his affinity with conservative Anglicanism and has hired an American theologian suggested by JD Vance to act as an adviser but if him and the likes of Robinson think that going down the religious route will attract more supporters, they are very much barking up the wrong tree because the evidence is that Church attendance is bulked out mostly by immigrants and they are the very last people who would go anywhere near the far right hate spouting groups who want them deported.
Still,  I am sure the right wingers enjoyed their little sing along yesterday, just hope that the carols they picked didn't have too many long words in them because they are not the brightest.

Ahmed al Ahmed: Bondi Hero

I went to bed watching news of yet another mass shooting in America and woke up to watch one in Bondi Beach in Australia.
Horrific scenes with 11 dead and 29 injured at what is being called a terror attack on a Jewish Hanukkah event but one man stopped the gruesome death toll being much worse, Ahmed al Ahmed.
The 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed, was seen in a video running up to one of the two attackers from behind and then grabbing the shotgun from his hands before pointing the weapon back at him and once the gunman ran away, placed the gun beside a tree and raised his hands for assistance.
Mr Ahmed, a father-of-two and owns a fruit shop in Sydney, was shot in the tussle and is due to have surgery but his brave actions potentially saved many lives.
Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales state said: 'That man is a genuine hero, and I've got no doubt that there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery' so we wish him all the best and a speedy full recovery and hope that Australia hand him the highest bravery award the country has.
At the same time a slow and painful recovery for the gunman in custody and currently in a critical condition in hospital.

Christmas Cards

We wouldn’t be truly celebrating the Season of Santa without handing over expensive folded cardboard to each other and receiving them from close relatives, friends, colleagues and  from firms that are actually a leaflet disguised as a card which go in the corner of the kitchen worktop along with the pile of old receipts and unopened letters from the bank until January when they’re unceremoniously chucked away.
We also receive e-cards from businesses and they usually go straight into my spam folder but you can’t decorate your house with e-cards and we usually prefer a genuine, physical bit of card, folded in half, that we can stick on a door frame but when you walk into a card shops in the High Street, you can become completely card-blind such is the sheer variety on offer.
There are weirdly rude cards (Bet you can't guess the picture on the one with 'The Human Santapede' written across the top), those  black-and-white 1950s Scene Cards and TV Cards which seems to always be of Mrs Brown or Only Fools and Horses.
There are Insulting Ageist cards, voluptuous woman in a bikini or hunky men in budgie smugglers Cards, arty Cards with photograph of a Christmassy animal, glittery Cards that will cover you hands with shiny bits that you will see on it forever and some really specific ones such as 'To my nephews second husbands mother'.
Some people do it themselves and you get a lovely Family photo Cards with Dad standing at the back in his best blazer, hands on his wife’s shoulders, his two children looking suitably embarrassed as they know they’ll be cringing at their hair in twenty years’ time.
There is also the people who tell you that: 'We’ve decided to give money to charity this year instead of sending cards' which has you thinking have they really given money to charity or they just being tightwads because a box of 20 costs about £1.99 and i know Charities say give what you can afford but come on, do both you tight git.
My personal choice are usually fairly traditional with a snowman or a festive Gonk on it and as part of my 'Keep Religion Out Of Christmas Campaign', not a baby in a manger or a stable full of animals in sight although i did get something close for my brother in law, it's called a Santapede, well, they are wearing Christmas Hats!  

Masks Debate Resurfaces During Super Flu

 
With the Christmas social season just getting going this is the best time to be a virus as people mingle and spread god knows what to each other which is why the NHS are warning that a record number of flu patients are currently in hospital and people should weigh up the merits of wearing face coverings.
Downing Street have said only that wearing a mask to help prevent the spread of respiratory illness: 'Was something people can consider' but they are urging those who haven't already had the flu jab to drag themselves somewhere with a nurse waiting for them with a syringe.
The problem this year seems to be that the Flu version currently doing the rounds is particularly transmissible and i have heard it referred to as a 'SuperFlu' by medical professionals a few times already which sounds scary as anyone who has had a non Super Flu will know, it is not fun and can be downright dangerous and have long lasting effects so if we can do something to prevent giving the misery to others, why not?
Wearing a mask when in close proximity to others is something simple we can do and as we found out in the Covid years, getting vaccinated, washing and sanitising hands, wearing masks and keeping our distance works and shouldn't be controversial although there are some whack-jobs who will try and argue otherwise but we know how that ends up, ask Meatloaf but you would need to do it via a Medium because just after wanging on about Covid being a hoax and all the precautions unneeded, he sadly discovered it wasn't a hoax and they were very much needed.
So what is so super about this particular variant when flu season it is an annual event anyway?
Professor Meghana Pandit, NHS national medical director, explained that this partuclar variant, influenza A/H3N2 to give it the proper title,  has been around since 1968 and there have been over a dozen such changes in that time but what is so special about this type is that it has started earlier than normal flu season which usually peaks after the Christmas get together's but this time has reached the numbers you generally see peak in early January and that means it is much more in circulation before getting its Christmas Bonus of parties and get together's.
Based on the data from the UK Health Security Agency, it is younger people getting infected more as their immune systems are less experienced at dealing with flu viruses and this particular strain is great at finding an immunity gap in children that isn’t present in other age group so adults are less likely to become infected overall, as they typically have an immune system which is more experience and resistance with the influenza, having already been exposed to many flu viruses over their lives.
The recommendations from the NHS this year are therefore getting vaccinated is still the best thing you can do to protect yourself and if you are sick, stay home and rest and take sensible precautions to avoid spreading the virus to others which includes masks which as we found out during Covid, are worn not to prevent you from catching a virus but to prevent the wearer from expelling virus-laden respiratory droplets into the air when coughing, speaking, or breathing for some other poor sod to breath in.

Venezuela Moved Into Trump's Gun Sights

Donald Trump's proto-fascist government seemed to have moved on from blowing up ships off the coast of Venezuela based on the evidence that they are boats off the coast of Venezuela, to stealing their boats full of oil like modern day Pirates whilst making all sorts of absurd allegations that Maduro, the Venezuelan President, is some sort of kingpin in the drugs trade.   
Obviously no evidence is forthcoming which makes a change to the previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when the evidence presented was just a made up fantasy but the American gunboat diplomacy against Venezuela continues anyway with promises of more to come.
I assume the end goal is the removal of Maduro and a nice, more American friendly President installed, one that will wave through the pillaging of the World's largest proven oil
reserves, estimated around 300 billion barrels  and the latest move to manufacture a war with the South American nation has gone down very well with Venezuela’s opposition leader and Trump patsy, María Corina Machado, who has poked her head out of hiding to say how she supports the US seizure of the oil tanker.
I imagine we will see a creeping of more warlike actions and it will eventually break out into a shooting war so what with providing backing for the Israeli genocide, attacking Iran and setting the military against his own civilians, will assure Trump has as much chance of winning his coveted Nobel Peace Prize as he has of winning the rear of the year award.

Oval Office Christmas Eve

Scene Oval Office,
Date Christmas Eve
Present are Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth.

Hegseth: Sir, wake up, we got a southern border violation by an illegal alien

Trump: It's those damn narco-terrorists again from Venezuela

Hegseth: We have sight of an unidentified craft loaded with suspect packages.

Trump: He looks like a bearded male, about 300 lbs. What do we know about him?

Hegseth: Our intelligence shows that he plans one big shipment a year and he's going to sneak into every kids bedroom at night. What shall we do Sir?

Trump: Jeffrey told me sneaking into kids bedrooms at night is fine but i don't agree on this occasion. We got to stop him.

Hegseth: Missile fired and .....Neutralised. Woohoo.

Trump: Hang on, he's still alive and clinging to the side of his craft, looks like you just winged him.

Hegseth: My favourite, a double tap. Second missile fired and....Got him.

Aide runs into the Oval Office.

Aide: Sir, Sir, Mr President, someone just killed Santa.

Trump: It was him!!! I wasn't even here at the time.

Reverend Lucy #2: When the Wise Men Swiped Right

Welcome to this years Christmas Eve Service with me, Reverend Lucy, and i was thinking what Mary, Joseph, and a herd of donkeys would look like in a world of TikTok dances and smart fridges today so this is my reinterpretation of the Nativity story through the lens of 2025, or 'When the Wise Men Swiped Right'.
So here we are traveling in our minds back 2,025 years to a small town in the desert, but we’ll also stay right here because although the story may be timeless, but the Wi-Fi isn’t.
So the Angel Gabriel sent a text to Mary: ‘Your pregnant with the son of god, put a reminder in your Calendar for 9 months, December 25th' so Mary would have checked her schedule and realised she should have to cancel her yoga class and bring forward that Zoom meeting.
Next was the trip to Bethlehem and when then Joseph would have had to have rounded up a Donkey for the trek, today it would be an Uber to take them along the Dusty Road and Joseph frantically tapping 'Accept' on his smartphone.
Obviously no room at the Inn's and Mary would be nagging him for not booking an Air BnB in advance so we are back in the Stable but this one would have 'Smart Facilities' like charging points for the phone and Wifi if you paid the few extra Shekles but Mary drew the line at Livestreaming the birth on Youtube.
So in the soft blue glow of the phone charging light, the baby Jesus swaddled in a blanket embroidered with the phrase 'Made in Bethlehem,' and a QR Code was laid in a Manger while a group of Shepherds who had received a notification that the Lord and Saviour had been born, entered and with each holding a smartphone and texting about the birth and reminding people to subscribe for their podcast for further updates on the angels and the forthcoming announcement of peace on Earth.
The Stable was by now becoming more cramped than a flashmob in a toilet cubicle and the Angels were explaining how from this day forward our memes will be kind, our comments constructive, and let's maybe try and cut back on the emojis when three wise men arrived, or to give them there correct name, Influencers, who instead of having followers, they would have… well, actual followers and they would say that Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh was so 2000 years ago so would leave Amazon Prime subscriptions, Spotify playlists, and a smartwatch.
By now the 'Battery Low' icon on Josephs phone would be flashing so let's end this story by agreeing that the Nativity story is still relevant, miracles can happen in any era, even today, even when wrapped in Wi-Fi signals and notification pings which when we strip away, we find the same message.
And that message is may your notifications be few, your Wi-Fi strong and your hearts ever-open.
My final message is the original star that led the Magi was a beacon of hope, and our modern stars might actually be be GPS satellites, the screen of a phone or a LED fairy light on a Christmas Tree but so be it.
Merry Christmas!!

Reverend Lucy

Welcome to this years Christmas Eve Service with me, Reverend Lucy, and it is nice to see so many new faces in the congregation tonight as we celebrate the reason for the season as the young people say, the birth of a rather special baby in a stable 2025 years ago.
As there are so many of us tonight, some i recognise as regulars, some i haven't seen for a long time and some i am meeting for the first time, my philosophy is generally as long as you don't nick the candles or drink the holy water from the font it's all good but it may be worth issuing a reminder of Church etiquette before we begin.
Firstly, unless you got too close to a candle and you are telling someone that their hair is on fire, we prefer silence during the service as people are here to listen to tales of that first Christmas and they will struggle to hear the message from the pulpit if all they can hear is you discussing how you are foregoing the Brussels Sprouts this year as they give you terrible wind.
Secondly, as it is December and very cold outside, headgear is fine to be worn inside the Church although wearing a turkey or Christmas tree shaped hat will probably obstruct the view of the person sitting behind you.
Thirdly, Mobile Phone's should be put on silent as the sound of the 'Ride of the Valkyries' echoing around the building during Hark The Herald Angel is very off putting for the organist.
Regular church goers know that during the service there will be some standing during certain parts. There are reasons they stand up or sit down during the service, they are not just playing a game of musical chairs so just follow everyone else's lead.
As this is the midnight Mass and unfortunately the Nativity Scene can drag on a bit, the usual human reaction is to nod off but unless you have a medical condition, such as narcolepsy, could you please at least try to stay awake and especially if you are a snorer.
Finally, when the collection plate comes around remember to put in and not take out and make sure that you don't walk out with more candles than you came in with and no matter how thirsty you are, the font water is not drinkable, many babies heads have been dipped into it and it will taste of a mixture of baby shampoo and cradle cap.

Sad Faced Rev

My blog partner asked me if i was writing any Christmas themed posts this year and i answered that i must have pretty much exhausted every Christmas related aspect there is, from Atheism at Christmas to whether to say Happy or Merry Christmas so probably not so many which made him do his sad face because he was keen to nick whatever i wrote to include in his December services.
It's an agreement we have, i write the posts and he does all the posting and techy stuff and has carte blanch to pilfer the best lines for himself, sanitize them to remove the religious sarcasm and then passes them off as his own and gets all the 'Oh Rev, you are so witty/charming/inciteful' comments from the congregation.
Obviously, as this time of year is all about Santa, Snowmen and red nosed reindeer, his Bethlehem gang gets very little look in these days and when they do, it is in a pretty sarcastic tone.
I said there was a couple of posts i wrote in 2015, one in 2017 and another in 2021 which are Christmas Eve sermon's by the Reverend Lucy and he is welcome to bastardise them but as he said he already did.
Not to worry Rev, I got you covered if only to avoid looking at that sad little face all bloody December.

Ceasefire In Name Only

The Qatar Prime Minister said today that the Gaza ceasefire negotiations were at 'a critical moment'.
Today alone seven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack and since the ceasefire was announced on 10 October 2025, Israeli forces have killed more than 360 Palestinians in Gaza so not much of a ceasefire then but Israel have always been murderously rubbish at not killing their neighbours during ceasefires.
Since the ceasefire with Lebanon in November 2024, Israel has killed more than 330 people, 127 in one attack last month, and maintaining forces inside its territory which were meant to have been pulled back.
What we have then is more of a reduce-fire from the Israeli's rather than a ceasefire although October's slaughter of 104 Palestinians including 46 children at a refugee camp in a single day doesn't point towards restraint although this was dismissed by the Trump administration as: 'a little skirmish' and that the peace deal was holding.
What is becoming apparent is that the ceasefire has led to a situation where Israeli forces can inflict outrageous violence on Gazan's and Lebanese without consequences which Amnesty International describes as: 'A dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal but what has in fact happened is a mere reduction of the scale of Israel’s attacks'.
The UN has noted that Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, which Israel continue to control 58% of, are suffering with aid trucks not being allowed to enter and attacks continuing with infrastructure continuing to be destroyed
UN Special Rapporteurs point out that Israel continues to operate beyond the agreed withdrawal line, in clear breach of the ceasefire terms and the International Force has not been agreed on yet so Israel continues to act with impunity and backed by the Americans who are bending over backwards to take whatever Israel stick to them, the Palestinians and Lebanese are expected to just humbly submit to their oppressors and accept a ceasefire which sees them continuing to be murdered.
Banning them from the Song Contest should be the very least we should be doing to a nation continuing to commit a genocide before our very eyes.

Sleepy Don

It is only 18 more sleeps to Christmas but more like 178 for Donald Trump because the guy seems to be falling asleep all the time lately.
My Facebook page is full of videos of him falling asleep at various meetings which once again has everyone talking about his health so i asked a doctor what did he think was wrong with the fat orange pedo's mate?
'He's a racist, abhorrent, misogynistic piece of shi....' began the doctor but i stopped him to say i meant specifically his health and why would he keep falling asleep.     
'Medically speaking' began the doctor, 'he is displaying obvious signs of cognitive and physical decline as well as being a racist, misogynistic piece of shi...' so i thanked him and checked my notes and saw that he is 145 and realised that was his weight in Kg and he is actually 79 and as well as keep falling asleep, we know he has elephant legs thanks to chronic venous insufficiency and there is that persistent bruising on his right hand which he has tried unsuccessfully to conceal with make up which shouldn't surprise anyone who notices that his make up choice tends towards Tangerine.
Trump has also undergone various medical checks including an MRI although he couldn't remember which part of the body was scanned and said he aced a cognitive test which he said was hard and it is, if you are unable to draw the time on a clock or knows what a camel looks like.   
Trump is apparently angry that so much focus is on his health and called the diagnosis that he is a mental and physical wreck 'bulls---t' but then he also said that he wasn't best buddies and hanging around with Jeffrey Epstein during his pedophile heyday so a man to believe obviously.

A Solution To Democracies Failings

Democracy has many problems, mainly that is only a Democracy for 1 day out of every 4 or 5 years but another is that every few years the Government changes and sets about undoing plenty of what the last lot did.
In the UK we have had The Conservatives and the Labour Party taking a wrecking ball to each others plans for decades but one thing which seems to have cross Party agreement is the UK's State Pension triple lock which is a policy to increase the State Pension by the highest of either average earnings growth, inflation or 2.5%.
The Tories introduced it in 2011 and Labour have maintained it since so if we could have cross Party agreement on Pensions, why not other things which are agreed upon by all parties and out of reach of whichever ideological party gain control?
There are some things which fluctuate such as taxation and pay awards so we couldn't tie that down and but we could have something like an agreement on the NHS Budget Triple Lock and the same for benefits and defence as well as Environmental targets which we do have but they are movable so we could tie them down securely.
If our main parties could get together and set in concrete some things which can only be changed by further cross party agreements, then we would be faced with such upheaval every 4 or 5 years and take the sting out of budgets every year.
I am sure there would be still be ideological differences and agreements between a very right wing Conservatives and the left wing Labour Party would be difficult (think Brexit) but the only alternative is to make terms longer so when a leader gets in they get a decade or two to build the nation they envision but that way lies something like a couple of decades of Boris Johnson and nobody wants that.
Then again, Democracy means that if a leader is a duffer, we get to kick them out but that brings me back to my initial point that the opportunity only comes once every 4 or 5 years and they can do a lot of damage in that time as we found out with Tony Blair and Liz Truss and she was only in charge for 44 days.
Maybe the solution is to remove humans from the chain of command and just plug in a computer and let Ai make the calls because i do believe that that day will come, maybe not in our lifetime but certainly someone will try it out somewhere.

A Smaller Eurovision This Year

Three cheers for Spain, Netherlands, Ireland and Slovenia who have pulled out of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in protest at Israel being cleared to compete despite their genocide going on in Palestine.
The United Kingdom's Eurovision Committee  has said that it was aware of the concerns over Israeli participation in the contest but are unlikely to withdraw while other nations such as Iceland and Belgium are considering whether to enter a song this year.
The vote to ban Israel was suspended following the ceasefire declaration but many nations were still angry that a nation with so much blood on its hands was being allowed to compete so they demanded a vote and the Eurovision Committee did a sleight of hand where they tagged the 'No Israel' vote to a clause for updating the voting system to make it fairer.
Israel's President Isaac Herzog obviously praised the decision, calling it: 'An appreciated gesture of solidarity, brotherhood, and co-operation, symbolising a victory over those who seek to silence Israel and spread hatred' which is another way of saying thank you for not punishing us for the genocidal mass murder and war crimes but there you go, at least he didn't say it was about Antisemitism which is the usual first straw grabbed at by anyone trying to defend the indefensible going on over there.   
I really hope the pressure grows on the British Committee to withdraw and we join Ireland and Spain in the dugout but it is throwing the Contest into turmoil and if a few more were to withdraw, it would have serious ramifications for the format of two semi finals and a grand final as well as financial but as Russia has been asked not to bother due to the invasion of Ukraine, it is hard to see how a nation like Israel and their abhorrent human rights record can be allowed to enter.

Bye Ellen

I read a story about Ellen DeGeneres which made me smile which is something because she never usually makes me smile, she is very much the female version of the similarly unfunny Jerry Seinfeld in that respect but 18 months after moving to the UK to escape Trump's America stating that 'Everything here is just better', she seems to have changed her mind.
It’s easy to be upbeat during a British summer, it really is a green and pleasant land when the Sun is out but now that the winter gloom has set in and the Sun only makes a brief appearance for a few hours and even then it has to battle rain clouds, the plastic Brits are plotting a return to Trumpland.
Apparently, DeGeneres and her wife can’t stand the thought of another British winter and are plotting a quick return to California which isn't a great advert for Britain when you flee fascism and a sex offending President with a criminal record only to run straight back to it because you’re a bit chilly over here.
She could have just put on another jumper but instead is waving goodbye to us Brits and nipping off back sharpish to Trumpistan where i am sure we will be given a warm welcome and and even warmer tootsies and where her humour is better appreciated than it is here.

Past To Future Lucy

Hi future Lucy, this is past Lucy. I'm actually you from 14 days ago so i hope you had a good holiday, didn't get too sunburnt or fall overboard or anything and don't worry, i am not here to show you previous things so you can change your ways or anything, i'm here to tell you what i fully expected you missed over the past 14 days.

Rachel Reeves would have delivered her budget and been keeping her head down ever since as someones taxes would have gone up so by April next year you and most other people will be paying more to the Treasury than you do at the moment.

The Israeli genocide would have gone on with many more Palestinians killed by the Israeli military despite there being a supposed ceasefire.

Russia will still be firing missiles and drones into Ukraine and Putin will still be promising to stop once he is rewarded for starting the war by being handed a decent portion of Ukraine.

As we are just entering the Christmas period, some group of workers will be threatening to strike over the Festive period.

It is a very good bet that Donald Trump said something stupid or offensive or more probably both.

Despite telling everyone you would be uncontactable and leaving your out of office on your emails, you WILL come back to find missed calls and texts on your work phone which has been left sitting in a kitchen drawer at home.

As the Christmas work rota would have been worked out while you was away, you may very well be having Christmas Diner at your desk again this year.

Arsenal would have beaten Tottenham, drawn with Bayern Munich and lost to Chelsea.

Welcome back.

Most Streamed Christmas Songs UK

Christmas songs are an essential component of the festive season, bounding into your home like a distant relatives each Christmas but with the advent of streaming,  many Christmas songs are far more accessible and looking at the UK’s most-streamed Christmas songs last year, it's the classics we reach for.
The Top 5 is the holy quintet of classics: Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You (1994) followed by Wham’s Last Christmas (1984) and Fairytale Of New York by The Pogues ft. Kirsty MacColl (1987),  Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone in fourth (1985), and Brenda Lee's Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree (1958).
The Charts define a 'Modern' Christmas song as anything released since 2010 and the highest-placed modern Christmas song goes to Michael Buble's 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas' from 2011 but is a song originally recorded in 1951 so the first original 'Modern' Christmas song is at number 8 where we hear  Ariana Grande's 2014 song 'Santa Tell Me'.
I'm all for the Classics but there has been some great Christmas songs since 2010 which will become classics in a few decades time when the term Modern is shifted forward a few years  
Kelly Clarkson’s Underneath The Tree (2010), Leona Lewis’ One More Sleep (2013),  Snowman (2021) and Santa's Coming For Us (2017) by Sia,  Merry Christmas by Ed Sheeran and Elton John (2021),  I’ll Be Home by Meghan Trainor (2014) Cozy Little christmas Katy Perry (2018), You're Christmas To Me Sam Ryder (2023) and It Can't Be Christmas by Tom Grennan (2024).
Interestingly, of the top 40 streamed Christmas Songs in the UK, only one has a religious element to it and that's Boney M with 'Marys Boy Child' at 37 with the rest mostly about Santa, Christmas Trees and Snowmen with even more songs about the weather than about the baby Jesus which shows that us Brits agree that Christmas is much better when we keep religion well out of it.