Is it dead in LJ-land today?

This is quite amusing: Firebox.com are offering a service that wraps gifts badly, so that it looks as though you did it yourself. And Clive James approves.

This column (from the Grauniad) by the incomparable Charlie Brooker laments the general crassness of the Christmas adverts by big chain stores (Asda, M&S etc.). The Argos one is the worst, mainly because it implies that there is something really "Christmassy" about ordering shit from Argos and having a lorry put it through your letter-box. Also ( Read more... )

This blog discusses how the Dutch view Father Christmas (Santa Claus). Basically, to those Netherlandish folk he's a benevolent bishop who lives in Spain and comes to town via a steamship. Fine. Ace. Fuck knows how the ship is supposed to reach Amsterdam, but there y'go ( Read more... )

I've been asked by a composer friend to write some (Welsh) lyrics for him to turn into a "Christmas song" for our choir to sing. I write lyrics now and then and once I get a bud of an idea I can get a whole song out of it fairly quickly. Trouble is, I've written at least three original lyrics concerning Christmas in recent years, and am, as then, ( Read more... )