Last night I went to the cosy little bookshop Books on the Heath in King's Heath, Birmingham . Marc Burrows was speaking about his new book Mistletoe and Vinyl - The story of the Christmas No. 1 . I've been getting Marc's newsletter since 2019. The Twitter algorithm served up a tweet in which he said he was writing a book about Terry Pratchett, one of my favourite authors, and of course I subscribed. He's been touring various bookshops, libraries etc. talking about this new book. He spoke for almost an hour, off the cuff, entertaining and engaging. The importance of being a number one at Christmas for an artist is a uniquely British phenomenon. He took us back to when Jesus' birth celebration was moved to the 25 December in 336, during the reign of Emperor Constantine. This was so that it was the same time as the cultures around were celebrating some sort of festival in the depths of winter. Singing and drinking are a part of all these celebrations. Fast forward to...
Yeah, er.... stuff.