What I like about this is that it’s an attempt to emulate the glitz and pomp of the glam rock Christmas classics from the 1970s, and it more or less succeeds. That the song hasn’t passed into Christmas legend isn’t its fault: it’s genuinely good. It stopped being fashionable to like The Darkness, but for a few months there they were, in their own way, very good indeed. And this video has everything, including a children’s choir and a Christmas message at the end. What more could you want? A penis reference, you say? It’s got that too. Enjoy.
Friday fun
courtesy of churchsigngenerator.com
Advent song for December 12
All David Bowie’s duets are odd, but this is the oddest. (Not including that one from Labyrinth which he sings with a monster.) What makes this, of course, is the bizarrely stilted run-up, which is reminiscent of nothing so much as the early scenes of a 1970s porn film.
Hi, I’m David Bowie, I live down the road
…
What sort of music do you play?
Oh, mostly…contemporary stuff – do you like modern music?
Oh, I think it’s marvellous.
Genius.
Advent song for December 11
No introduction needed for this one, I don’t think. Keep an eye out for the coats and the hairstyles; I can’t decide which are more surprising.
Seasonal songs
I’ve realised, too late, that I should have created my own online advent calendar by embedding a video for a different Christmas song each day. Well, it’s too late to do it from the 1st, but it’s not too late to start now. So from now until Christmas, except on the 19th-22nd inclusive when I will be out of the country and may not have internet access, I will link to a new Christmas song each day from among my personal favourites. We will begin with an item which is neither an embedded video nor even a video at all, really, but it’s one of the happiest Christmas songs there is: Andy Williams singing Sleigh Ride. Make sure you listen all the way through; it gets better as it goes along. Just like advent.
Erratum
I was mistaken yesterday when I said that The Wimbledon Poisoner was the only book to have rendered me insensible with laughter. It also happened with Three Men In A Boat.
Autumn reading roundup
Interspersed with P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, I have managed to bend my eyes around a few proper books in the last month or two…
The Ballad of Peckham Rye is great fun, my fondness for locally-set stories notwithstanding. It reminded me a bit of The Wimbledon Poisoner, which is still the only book to have reduced me to helpless, sobbing fits of laughter. On a crowded train. I have also bought myself a copy of The Wimbledon Poisoner, which I intend to treat myself to a re-reading of over Christmas.
Jack Maggs is a clever, sideways re-telling of Great Expectations, but I don’t think you’d need to have read the latter book to enjoy it. Worth it for the atmosphere and the dialogue; Peter Carey catches the Dickensian tone almost perfectly, which makes it all the more jarring on the couple of occasions where he misses it.
The Choking Doberman is all of the things I like best: a meandering, thoughtful discourse on the nature and history of some of the most famous urban legends of our times. It was published over twenty years ago so there’s been plenty of development since, but the most interesting aspect of it is how many stories which I heard in the 1980s and 1990s were old news even then. It’s also funny, creepy and disturbing in equal measure, and some of the stories are fantastically gruesome.
Mommie Dearest is Joan Crawford’s daughter Christina’s account of a life lived in the shadow of one of Hollywood’s more genuine fuck-ups. The stories she tells about her childhood are harrowing, but I came out of it feeling more sorry for Joan, who never overcame her deep unhappiness, than for Christina, who at least managed to find her way out of it and make some sort of normal life for herself. Worth reading, but steel yourself.
I had been slightly put off The Yiddish Policemen’s Union because for a while it seemed to be one of those books which everyone was reading, and I have a slight and perverse desire not to read those books, or at least not at the same time as everybody else reads them. I remember mentioning a few years ago to two friends that I was reading We Need to Talk About Kevin, and having them both tell me that they were reading it too. I felt sullied, and was slightly put off the book. Anyway, I eventually got around to TYPU and I’m glad I did, because I enjoyed it very much indeed. I don’t know if it’s because the characters are speaking and thinking in Yiddish (though everything is in English), or if that’s just the way Michael Chabon writes, but the language is so crunchy and substantial that the pleasure one takes in reading it is almost palpable. It’s exactly as satisfying as making the first footprint in a sheet of deep snow. It’s also a murder mystery, and I like them lots.
I’m now halfway through a book of short stories by Ethan Coen, which so far I’m also enjoying, and for similar reasons. But that’s a post for another day.
PS
I do hope you appreciate my Christmas redesign. If you look at the site through a feed reader (and I know via Bloglines that there’s at least one other person who does) then please take the time to click through so you too can appreciate my seasonal sparkle. Of course, it’s nothing to do with me personally – it’s all thanks to WordPress and their ace design options.
Another advent calendar
Radio 4’s Today programme also has an online advent calendar, with each day’s offering an “audio treat” from the past eleven months of early morning broadcasting. Although as I write it’s after 7pm and today’s entry isn’t available yet. But I mainly want to draw it to your attention because it will almost certainly feature the moment several months ago when Charlotte Green suffered a fit of the giggles whilst announcing the news of a death, and if you haven’t heard it already you really ought to.
You’ll be delighted to hear that I eventually found a real-life advent calendar which didn’t feature chocolates, although it is a bit godly. But I suppose that’s forgiveable. It’s from Oxfam – are they to do with god? I can never remember.
Glad All Over 