It sometimes feels as if I worked alongside Charles
Babbage on his Analytical Engine and I’ve convinced myself I did some coding
alongside Alan Turing; I certainly played some games on Prestel – the forerunner
of the World Wide Web - and I once won the League for West Ham on a Sinclair ZX
Spectrum; so it shouldn’t come as any great surprise when I get a message via
the Internet - but the fact is it occasionally does.
When an email arrives from Calgary, Canada some 4300
miles away – sent by someone you don’t know and are never likely to meet - telling
you how much he enjoys your half-baked attempt to post a Christmas song every
day over Advent, you can feel kinda humbled. Either that or your head turns
around and smoke comes out of your ears like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I got such an email early in November pointing me to
this husband and wife duo who I might otherwise have never known about. Over
the Rhine seem ideally suited for Christmas Eve; Slow, sultry, smoky with
dangerously romantic overtones, you don’t so much listen to this as sink into
it like a 15 tog duvet.
Strings
of lights above the bed / Curtains drawn and a glass of red / All I ever get
for Christmas is blue / Saxophone on the radio / Recorded forty years ago / All
I ever get for Christmas is blue
With this in mind - whether you go out or stay in this
most wonderful of nights – make sure you enjoy whatever it is you do with
whoever you chose to be with. It’s Christmas, you're alive and the other options aren't anywhere near as good.
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