BT Engineers managed to screw up the wiring for my ADSL exchange so I wasn’t connected to the right exchange anymore - thankfully the problem was sorted out after I sicced One.tel on them.
For a breath of common sense, check out Jack Straw’s article in the Times today: “Have a little faith in the ‘c’ word”.
I’ve been disconnected for a while so I’m still playing ‘catch-up’ on everything from blogs, gaming news and webcomics (that’s a whole lot of funneh to catch up on). This post is liable to be FAT.
So what’s been going on in the world? There’s been the WTO protests - a large horde of Korean dirt-farmers trashing Wan Chai, the failure of Sir Donald’s reform package (which afforded us the unique privilege of a blog comment from Conrad of the now-defunct-but-always-fondly-remembered Gweilo Diaries) and of course the current protests in Iraq over election fraud.
Turning to the protests, I’m heartened to read that it’s your standard peaceful protest with dialogue between all the parties. I have to wonder though, how much of it is simply frustration at being stomped on in a democratic environment when the Sunni minority spent decades on top. Iraq fell into the old trap of trying to prevent over-arching parliamentary majority by employing an electoral list system and the result is of course that 15% of the people only have 15% of the seats.
I’d have suggested a First-Past-The-Post system for the constituencies as it would let the Sunnis wield a disproportionate amount of power simply because of geographical concentration. However the strong government which normally results from such a system is rarely a panacea for a troubled country without the sobering force of stuffy traditionalism (which countries like England have in spades) to keep the exercise of power in check.
It would be like letting a starving man loose on a banquet, too much too fast. The benefit of an electoral list is that it obliges parties to form coalitions and reach consensus - whilst this is a laudable aim it falls rather short in Iraq when the disaffected minority are a real minority. Nonetheless it’s nice to see that the larger political forces are willing to embrace their tempestuous cousins, when in a more stable, peacetime country they’d be told where to get off .
On a domestic note, the house is now playing host to my uncle Robert. Ever-gripped by the spirit of Christmas and a whirlwind of efficiency and diligence, Zio Roberto is a big asset at Christmastime. The fact that he’s also tackling the garden is simply a bonus.
He’s going to love the Christmas present I bought him.
The Christmas prank has stalled somewhat, I’m not so sure my little sister deserves it this year as she hasn’t really played any pranks on me for a while and she certainly doesn’t deserve Scenario Alpha; the meanness quotient of which is so potent that the scheme practically radiates its own malign halo.
I beat Snowcraft (thank god, I was beginning to think I’d be sitting here all day trying to finish) so that Christmas tradition is dispensed with.
I’ve still not managed to wrap my youngest siblings’ gifts, nor my mothers. I ought to get onto it at some point today.
As I may have mentioned a few times in this blog, I’m a gamer geek at heart. CCGs, RPGs, Tabletop games, Board Games (not of the mindless-do-what-the-card-says ilk which covers everything up to and including Monopoly) are all ‘on the menu’, so to speak.
Anyhow, Board Games are unique in the gaming world in that they require ‘limited buy-in’. See when one person picks up a CCG (collectible card game) then everyone who wants to play them fairly needs to spend the same amount of money on that game. Very often that figure starts to creep up to the cost of a box of cards (£50 odd). This was of course, fine ‘back in the day’ when I first started playing Magic: the Gathering and met Z at the Colchester Games Club. Everyone we introduced to the game all played the same thing so fundamentally the buy-in wasn’t much of an issue.
(Oh I now have the odd honour of being the man who introduced the current UK Magic: the Gathering Champion to the game, Richard is about a million times better than me anyway.)
However, new CCGs couldn’t really be picked up easily because everyone would have to buy the same amount (or at least a minimum number of booster packs).
Board Games have the advantage of only requiring one guy to buy the game, after which everyone else can play. Roll2d6, the superlative gaming podcast, gives this as the reason why its producers play Board Games almost exclusively.
In our group, it seemed that Conrad had a disproportionately large number of Board Games (like, 4 to Nil, Nil, Nil, Nil and Nil) so I decided a few months ago to even the score.
I’ve been picking up games at a rate of one a month (with the odd in-between purchase for really cheap games, such as those made by the marvelous Cheapass Games) and this month added Battlestations to my arsenal.
The game is a sort of RPG/Board Game hybrid which mixes the finest traditions of Hex-map based space combat games with ‘between the bulkheads’ games like Space Hulk and Awful Green Things From Outer Space. However both Space Hulk and AGTFOS concentrate exclusively on combat - Battlestations is about actually running around doing the things necessary to run your ship. You want to turn the ship? Someone has to run down to the helm and actually steer the thing. Fire a cannon? Not if someone’s not in the cannon module, at the battlestation in question.
Boarding isn’t a case of simply rolling of dice, you actually load your characters into a boarding missile and burst into the enemy ship. The system does an excellent job of giving you a real sense of both scale and consequence as your horribly understaffed crew bustle about the ship in a state of permanent alarm, fixing battledamage, carrying out vital ship functions (“DIVERT ALL POWER TO THE SHIELDS!!”) and kicking rebel aliens in their bizarrely placed erogenous zones.
Your characters improve as missions go by, in the style of a tabletop RPG (although the characters are rather pared-down to streamline the gaming experience) and even though the crew of my group’s human scout vessel, the Vindicator, have only carried out 2 missions, the players are really enthusiastic about the system. We’ve only scratched the surface of the features and mission types so we’re really looking forward to the next session.
Right, that’s a pretty fat post.
I’m going to go see if I can be of any help around the house - Midnight Mass tonight!
Later
John
Scott Kurtz tackles the thorny issue that’s being debated in the US by the horns but doesn’t seem to balance it too well in tomorrow’s stip.
There’s a backlash against the ubiquity of the phrase “Happy Holidays” in the US. Obviously it’s a non-christian non-demoninational means of saying “Happy Christmas” and it has some merits.
It allows you to embrace Chanukah and other religious holidays (or horribly contrived ones like Kwanza - sorry guys, I think it’s dumb) in the same single-use sentence.
However, people aren’t celebrating Chanukah - they’re largely celebrating Christmas. Even if you don’t believe in Jesus’ divinity the name of the holiday is still pretty obvious. The UK is becoming less and less devout but we still call Christmas, Christmas.
Every year people complain that Christmas is getting too commercialized, I submit that Christmas has every bit of its former integrity - ‘December Holiday’ sold out long ago. After all, if you refuse to call it Christmas and celebrate the birth of Christ then what are you actually celebrating? Seems to me the answer to that is “fuck all” or at the most “Shopping” - there’s nothing to sell out because there’s nothing there to begin with.
The character Brent Sienna is an avatar for the part of Scott Kurtz that likes to make inflammatory and inappropriate comments but here he just comes across as a jerk. Having Christ ‘shoved down the throats’ of non-Christians seems a slightly ridiculous interpretation of the situation - if you don’t want to celebrate Christmas don’t celebrate Christmas, but don’t pretend that it’s something it’s not. You want the tree, the presents and the carols? It’s Christmas dude, just accept it.
Kurtz hasn’t been on great form as of late in all honesty, Wednesday’s strip seemed a little fan-fic’ish, as if it had been produced by a guest cartoonist. The lines weren’t great and rather than going for the standard “shocked looking face of intruder” frame, Kurtz chooses to show Brent and Jade getting it on - again, I get the feeling he just drew this to solicit opinion (grats dude, I evidently cared enough to write about it) and honestly it detracts from the joke and makes the strip a little less family friendly without providing a lot in return.
Perhaps it’s just that Jade’s boobs in that Miss Santa costume seem to totally ignore any sort of styleguide that existed for the normally meticulously-uniform, PvP Online cast. Yet overall, I don’t think Kurtz has really been on top of his game this December. Jade’s irritation with Brent’s sudden and uncharacteristic enthusiasm for Christmas has seemed contrived and unfounded. At the very least it’s ill explained.
If he wanted the PvP Online staff to transmogrify into anthropomorphic rabbits he could go ahead and I’d read as long as he gave a good enough reason for it - he’s the creator. Yet Kurtz’s humour for the past few years has been (brilliantly) generated almost entirely from interactions between the memorable characters he’s created so he’s now judged on how well they play to their roles (or grow with them). When you have such great characters it really sticks out like a sore thumb when one of them is acting out of character and Jade has been off-key all month (in my opinion). Kurtz is a victim of his own brilliance.
PvP Online’s Christmas strips have traditionally been blinders; excellent and hilarious. It’s a shame to see this year’s arch still struggling to get anywhere interesting or particularly funny.
I hope Kurtz pulls something special out of the bag to salvage the month. Knowing him it’ll be so good that I’ll instantly forgive him for the lackluster strips he’s issued thus far.
Later
John
This BBC byline:
That’s correct, but a more accurate description would be: “Iraqis have voted in large numbers for their first full-term government for FOURTY YEARS”
Goalpost moving amongst the anti-war camp has already begun, including a slightly ridiculous letter to the Times. We are hearing the beginnings of a timid “Life wasn’t so bad under Saddam…” arguments being tested in the waters of public opinion. It sounds ridiculous and it is ridiculous but honestly, some people are trying it out if only to see if they can get away with it - this BBC headline more or less sweeps thirty five years of oppression, murder and genocide under the rug.
Bush laid it out and David Aaronovitch wrote in the Times yesterday on the subject - yes we accept the failings of the post-war situation but at the same time the anti-war group need to accept 2 facts:
1) Without the war, Saddam Hussein would still be in power.
I’m ASTONISHED how often I hear people trying to worm out of this one! It’s honestly disgusting! I had to put up with it on Radio 4 last week.
2) Democracy in Iraq is the product of the invasion and nothing else. Saddam not only had a regime that was almost immovable, built on a foundation of fear, intimidation and oppression, but he also had bought-off dozens of international political figures (as evidenced by the Volker report) and had 2 heirs to his bloody throne. The Baath party wasn’t going anywhere.
After the results are published later in the month, every single day the Iraqis live under a democratically elected government, which respects the rule of law, will be a victory. In ten, twenty, thirty years time that will be an awful lot of victory compared decades of poverty, ruin, oppression and death that they would be enjoying were it not for the invasion.
We have sacrificed political capital, international opinion and beyond anything else - thousands of lives for this. It’s a painful price to pay but I’m reminded of the words on the Colchester memorial to the Glorious Dead:
“We gave our today, for your tomorrow”
The Iraqi people have a tomorrow now and it will last a lot longer than the 3 years of blood it cost us.
Later
John
Stupid work, actually obliging me to y’know get up off my ass and study.
Anyhow.
The important issues of the day:
Iraqi Voting - Boo Yah! Nothing more need be said but that’s not going to stop me. All the polling stations are devoid of coalition troops, it’s Iraqi national armed forces policing there. Let’s see, massive-turnout, Sunni endorsed, Democractic Elections in Iraq with a brilliant show of competence from the national armed forces. Smells a lot like winning.
David Cameron - Well whilst I’m busy watching the Labour party rip itself to shreds (education reform? Screw that - let’s topple the man who won us our seats and present an unelectable, rift-ridden crapheap to the general public for the next election!) the Tories have a candidate who actually have them beating Labour in the polls.
It took about 2 minutes for Labour head office to dash out an email from comedienne Jo Brand which started thusly:
David Cameron (Dave to his friends), an old Etonian distantly related to the Queen, has been elected leader of the Conservative Party.
At last, it has dawned on Tory members that they need to be in touch with the reality of the modern world and the lives of the majority of British people!
Yes, it’s funny and yes the letter did go on to say what needed to be said - lower taxes being horrific for the NHS, Education and all the public services which have shown such marked improvement under New Labour - but taking potshots at Cameron’s background and ancestry? That’s pretty ridiculous.
You can’t purport to be a party which strives for equality and then berate someone for being born into a certain class or background. It has to go both ways guys, you can’t just be pro-working-class - equality not class war.
David Cameron is a charismatic, young candidate who can really do some damage to New Labour and by being utterly unashamed of his background he’s inviting the rabid left (who already have done the party considerable damage) to come snarling out of the blocks to reveal themselves as cro-magnon über-socialists. If we start tearing into Cameron for his family tree it will just make the Labour party look ridiculous.
Later
John
I’ve been working as an exam invigilator for the past week at Thomas Lord Audley school in Monkwick this past week.
Words cannot describe how shocked I was.
16 Year olds telling you to “fuck off” and inviting you to “bend over and lick my arse” when they’re in a frikkin’ exam is something of an eye opener.
Being threatened with having my ‘fucking skull cracked open’ during a breaktime by a student who I had removed from an exam wasn’t terribly enjoyable either, nor was being called a “cunt” repeatedly by his 11 (!) year old brother when the little brat managed to pick me out as I was walking down the steps from the VI Unit office.
I don’t know, in all the other 10+ schools I’ve gone to, invigilators were just a formality - no one talked during Exams, let alone made farting noises, twanged rulers, threw paper or whistled surreptitiously. For pities sakes! These kids are about to take their GCSEs!
The bad apples were either stupid or shameless, every staff-member I questioned suggested that it was probably both. Have they never heard of peripheral vision? I was able to catch dozens of them talking or throwing pens, flicking paper or rubbers simply by not looking directly at them but by keeping my attention on them through my peripheral vision and hearing.
It was crazy but now it’s over. I relish the prospect of more study and research - Invigilating an exam should be a matter of standing around/patrolling the aisles till your feet ache and you’re bored out of your mind, not a job akin to being a Community Support officer.
I met so many great kids there but the fact was that if I had a child I’d home school them or move if they were in the TLA catchment area. I hope the recently announced Special Measures from Ofsted (the public education auditors) will make a difference but I personally think too much of that school is too far gone.
Monkwick has serious social issues to deal with; neglectful parents, benefit fraud and welfare-addiction. These kids deserve a better life at school. As much as the horrendous home life so many of them suffer through influences their behavior at school, we can still do better.
Perhaps a letter to Bernard Jenkins is in order. He’s a Lib Dem in very Tory seat, with David Cameron’s latest revivification of the Conservative party he’s got to be interested having an impact in the community. Maybe our horrendous Lib Dem borough council could help out too.
Later
John
People keep marching in Hong Kong.
It’s not about jobs, about immigration or even about politics; Universal Suffrage is a basic human right.
Why are China so intransigent on this matter? It’s because they have no other choice.
If they had let Patten’s political reforms continue in Hong Kong post 1997 they would have probably been able to salvage the 1 country 2 systems principle. Hong Kong would have probably been democratically sound by now and China could at least stem the proliferation of Democracy. They could point to Hong Kong and say, ‘they’re different, that’s why they’re treated different’.
But they didn’t. They treated Hong Kong like another provincial township and basically put it in the same basket as every soiled, downtrodden, urban Chinese city. The message has been clear - You’re a part of China, you’re the same as every other province in the People’s Republic, there’s nothing particularly special about Hong Kong which would allow it the right to Universal Suffrage.
So when eventually Universal Suffrage does come, the mainland towns might just raise an eyebrow. China has swept any differences between Hong Kong and Shenzen under the carpet, so if Democracy is good enough for Hong Kong why isn’t it good enough for Shenzen?
“They said the same things about Hong Kong as they said about us.” The people will ponder, “they legislated in Hong Kong as they did over us - there is no material difference between the policies towards Hong Kong and the policies for the rest of China”
and from that must come the inescapable conclusion: “We are the same.”
And if one hand should receive the vote, why shouldn’t the other? They’re equal, they’re the same, they deserve to be treated in the exact same way.
By failing to distinguish between Hong Kong and the rest of their dominion since the handover, the CCP has now boxed itself into a corner. There can be no special rules or conditions for Hong Kong now because they’ve spent 8 years screaming that the former colony is just another part of China - by their words and by their actions.
Instead of isolating Hong Kong in political quarantine, the CCP sought to smother it. To impose conformity over individuality and to plaster Hong Kong in the colours of mainland uniformity. Now it’s coming round to bite them in the ass.
The CCP spent so much time and effort trying to stop Democracy from proliferating and infecting the political vacuum left by decades of communist rule that they ironically ensured its spread. When Hong Kong gets the vote, every chinese province will demand the vote.
To quote Princess Leia,
“The more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your fingers.”
Best of Luck, Hu.
Later
John
It’s the 1st of December (or at least it was when I started writing this).
It’s my father’s Birthday and so the ritual ‘Christmas Watershed’ around our house arrives at midnight tonight.
This means that there is now a green light for Christmas songs to be sung around the house, played on pianos and clarinets and generally embraced in a way that is strictly prohibited from December 26th onwards (by family law).
So as the festive season swings into gear allow me to share some of my Christmas traditions, from the eccentric to the classical:
1) Decorating the Computer
I don’t mean tinsel around the monitor and keyboard (although that sounds fun now that I think about it) but there’s a ritual of sorts which must be followed to transform my computer into a ‘Christmas Mac’:
However, since Hertzfeld is now my computer (Dual 2ghz G5, 2.5gig RAM) the Snö really isn’t bothering it. I’ve never seen it this smooth and the effect is rather beautiful.
2) Deciding on a Presents Theme
Ok this perhaps isn’t so weird but I tend to try and pick a theme around which to base everyone’s presents, often this gets in the way of my love of picking out gifts that suit people perfectly so I’ll end up ditching it. One year everyone got books (which made me Mr Popular with my siblings *cough*). Last year almost everyone received HomestarRunner.com merchandise. This year I may forgo the theme as it tends to be a little hit and miss.
3) The Christmas Scheme
The Christmas Scheme is a new tradition.
It all began as just another skirmish in the prank war my youngest sister and I had been fighting for a few months.
I had been laying the foundations for weeks beforehand. Dropping hints that I wouldn’t be able to buy people good gifts for Christmas this year as I wasn’t too solvent (which she accepted stoically). Joking that I’d have to buy people breakfast cereal and toilet paper instead. She had looked over my shoulder at ‘Marzipan’ and ‘Teen Girl Squad’ T-Shirts as I had been surreptitiously surfing to pick out people’s gifts from Homestarrunner.com and I’d moaned loudly that I wished I had the money to buy them. It was accepted wisdom amongst the two little’uns that I’d not be putting on my standard big-bro present-platter.
Then, the evening before we left to drive to our aunts (where we’d be spending Christmas), I brought out an old cereal box that I’d been saving for the occasion, wrapped the T-Shirts she’d wanted in tissue paper and stuffed them inside. I included a small tin-foil package with a few grains of rice that rattled convincingly when shaken and wrapped the whole thing up with the flair that all good presents deserve. On the tag I wrote “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get you what you wanted - but here’s a Healthy way to Start the Day!”
Christmas morning was glorious. The expectation on her face, the crestfallen look, then the despair as a box of supermarket-brand cornflakes revealed itself beneath hastily torn wrapping paper.
“Pour yourself a bowl!” I exhorted, barely concealing my grin.
The T-Shirts fell out and as Francesca began to pummel me, furious at the brilliance of my malign scheme. I laughed myself breathless even as I received the beating - hooting as I guzzled the sweet syrup of my revenge.
This year, I’m cooking up something equally devious. I’ll keep you posted on it, at least in as much as I can without spoiling the prank.
4) Playing Snowcraft
I believe I’ve mentioned before my belief that it’s not Christmas until I’ve played Snowcraft through once and beaten every level. I discussed the flash game in question in that blog post from a few years back so I’ll just paste the relevant paragraphs here:
I first encountered this lovable little flash game in late 2000 and it provided me a whole load of fun as I honed my skills of winter combat, my plucky Red jacketed crew bravely facing down the Green shirted thugs from around the neighborhood, pelting the little stinkers with heavily charged snowballs and avenging their fallen comrades.
In order to beat Snowcraft (and I suggest you go and play it right after finishing this article) you have to duck and dodge out of the hail of fire. I normally fight by starting the game in a mad rush to get all my guys into the safety of the bottom left hand side of the screen (“ ‘Ave it Greenies! Your diagonal trajectory cannot reach us here!”) and then take one member on a pelting mission, slipping in and out of the range of fire squeezing of a hail of snowballs at point-blank range. This technique has been developed over years of play and all other methods were exhausted first (including the “ARTILLERY!!” style long distance lobbing which can’t save you forever). Even using my ‘commando’ techniques it still takes about 6 games before I’m back on ‘top form’.
The game is an absolute corker, it was the best flash game I’d ever played when I found it and nothing has come since to take its crown. I only wish there was a sequel :)
I can honestly say that the sentiments ring true today. I’m going to be 30 and still playing Snowcraft every christmas. Even more disturbingly that’s only 9 years away - weird.
5) Watching the HomestarRunner.com Holiday Toons
Jeez, how many times am I going to end up linking to HomestarRunner.com this post?
Anyhow, it needs to be said. The Brothers Chaps have created some of their best work to mark Christmas and whilst I have to wait till Christmas day (or a few hours after it if the Brothers are behind schedule and working as furiously as they can) to watch the most recent installment, all their past catalogue still serves very well if you’re looking for a festive chuckle. The Toons section houses all their flash work and if you select “Holiday” you can easily navigate to the Christmas flash cartoons.
It’s just not Christmas without Strong Bad singing “Oh Holy Crap!” (in the place of “Oh Holy Night”)
6) Making Mincemeat
OK for all the Americans who read this blog, if you haven’t already been told, Mincemeat is not in fact minced meat. It’s an old English pie-filler made from rasins, ginger, nuts and copious amounts of alcohol. It used to be minced meat but that was in medieval times and was a result of the practice of spicing meat with apples, ginger, pears and the like (hence, the ‘sweet-meats’ of the time), over time it became the meat-free delight we enjoy today.
My family uses an old recipe handed down from my Great Grandmother and I have to say I am blessed, for the past 3 generations there has been but one relative from each with the requisite cooking skill and I have a direct path of descent through all of them, if this was not the case I’d have to deal with store-bought mince pies which are a whole other beast (and taste about as nice as minced meat pies).
Making the mincemeat involves a lengthy process of stirring. Each of the family takes it in turns to mix the mincemeat with a long wooden spoon. As you stir it you’re supposed to make a wish. I’d say my wish record stands at about 16/18 which is pretty respectable.
The end result is so ridiculously delicious that one year we had an American staying with us for Christmas and she would creep downstairs in the middle of the night to eat it from the jars - not even needing my sister’s glorious pastry to enjoy the stuff.
7) The Presepio or Nativity Scene
I only learned a few years ago that this was an Italian tradition, I had always assumed it was a common practice or at the very least one simply unique to Catholics. We set up a nativity scene (I’d link to the Italian sites but they are shockingly bad), from models constructed explicitly for the purpose - a stable complete with manger, Mary and Joseph, a selection of cattle, shepherds, sheep and the three kings.
At the beginning of advent the stable is filled only with Mary, Joseph and the cattle, the manger is empty, the shepherds stand away from the scene and the kings even further.
On Christmas, Jesus is placed in his manger and the shepherds take their place in and around the stable.
Finally on the day of Epiphany the kings arrive at the stable.
The significance is obvious but it’s really a good focus of the celebration from a Christian perspective and it makes the whole sequence of events easier to explain to children. My Nonno traditionally takes the task of preparing our presepio upon himself as he generally manages to make an visit around Christmas time. If he arrives after it has been set up, he dutifully nudges it into a composition that is more pleasing to his uniquely qualified sensitivities.
8) The Snowman on the Christmas Tree
The Snowman on the Christmas Tree is unique in this list insofar as it’s a Christmas tradition that comes from my father’s side of the family, or more accurately from my father. Christmas is not highly celebrated amongst the Swaines (at least no one puts the same amount of effort in as my mother each year, they can contest it all they want but I’m a witness to that fact, sorry guys) but my father always used to put the last decoration on the tree. Instead of a fairy or a star we had a snowman, placed on top of the tree by my lofty father (with whom I am now even in height). This is the tradition I miss the most, I long to sit cross legged, looking up at my dad’s seemingly-incredible stature as he places Mr Snowman in the topmost boughs of our tree - a place I can barely see let alone reach. Call it nostalgia, call it a longing for the family christmases I loved so much - I still feel sad when I have to reach up and set the snowman on his branch rather than simply fish him out of the decorations boxes and hand him to my dad.
9) The Christmas Breakfast
Bill Bryson remarked that Americans have intelligently spread out the major holidays: They have the Eating Holiday (Thanksgiving), the Gift-Giving Holiday (Christmas) and the Drinking Holiday (New Year’s). The English make Christmas an orgy of gluttony, gift swapping and boozing and whilst I remain largely sober throughout the day, the eating is always important.
In the morning, we open our stockings (those of us young enough to still get stockings) and then head downstairs all wearing our flannel tartan pyjamas. We sit down to enjoy a Christmas breakfast. Fresh Coffee, Eggs, Croissants, Crumpets and of course Pandoro. I believe my mixed ancestry has led to an extra-enjoyable Christmas experience and a lot of that is down to the food: the English side contributes a Turkey (although that’s more American in place of the traditional English goose which has fallen out of favour), mince pies and the massively alcoholic, fattening and quite simply glorious Christmas Pudding and the Italian side contributes Pandoro and Panettone - two bready Christmas baked goods - one sweet served with dusted icing sugger and the other filled with fruits and raisin chunks.
I believe it is testament to the delicious versatility of Pandoro that I can honestly say the scales are balanced between English and Italian Christmas food. Get a good one from a good Italian name if you intend to try it out this Christmas. Eaten with family and a mug or bowl of Cafe Latte it can really give Christmas day a great start.
10) Gingerbread Latte
If you’ve read my blog for any amount of time you don’t even need to read this passage. Christmas. In a cup. Nuff said.
There’s more to Christmas than just these traditions. The point is, they’re traditions that really speak to me and I think help define what Christmas means to me as a person. At some point I hope to have settled down and raised a family of my own and I hope I’ll have the good sense to look back on this post and remember what made Christmas so special for me so I can provide it for my family.
However, #11 is the most important one and the one I’ll end with:
11) Midnight Mass
This is what makes Christmas for me. This is my favourite moment of the year. In the right church, with the right people it’s the most special moment imaginable. Perhaps it’s the the slight buzz of excitement at the promise of tomorrow’s festivities mixed with the crisp air and the smell of incense or perhaps it’s because at no other time of the year do you feel quite so much joy, celebration and love all in a single church - even one as wonderful as our current parish.
As a Christian and as a Catholic, Midnight Mass really makes me feel joyful for my faith - I give thanks every week in church but I can’t describe the elation and the sheer jubilance that Midnight Mass inspires. I guess if you’re an atheist this doesn’t make much sense but for me, this is what it’s all about.
“And when they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy” - Matthew 2:10
Later
John
