On 12th day of Christmas … I watched The Christmas Chronicles

Good lord but the spirit of Christmas is a fragile and easily-derailed thing. Judging by the sheer exuberantly-colourful preponderance of Christmasness everywhere, you would be reasonably safe to assume that the festive season is a robust and unalterable thing. Not so, counsel endless numbers of Christmas films, with one of Continue Reading

On 10th day of Christmas … I read Terry Pratchett’s Father Christmas’s Fake Beard

Among the may things I love about the work of much-missed late Discworld author Terry Pratchett is the sense of playful irreverence that fills each and every word. A master storyteller who has a deserved legion of fans including myself to his enduring credit, Pratchett’s sense of the quirkily absurd and his Continue Reading