Well, I’ve drunk half a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, eaten a box of Tesco mince pies by myself and lit the fourth candle on my Blue Peter Advent Crown, so that can only mean one thing – I’m a drunken, bloated pig with scant regard for Health and Safety considerations. Oh, and it’s Christmas Eve!
What with paying off the Yarm carol singers in US cash and pressing my face up against the windows of Toys R Us, I probably won’t get chance to write again before Christmas, so just a quick note to say how much I wish all visitors to these ramblings a ‘cool yule’ (as my friend Andrew Suddes would say – he’s still aggrieved that his mention in ‘Wiffle Lever To Full!’ was lost in the edit, but hopefully this helps to make amends), and I hope Santa brings you everything you’re after, and you don’t end up disappointed like I was by the lack of Millennium Falcon action back in 1980.
I’m only joking if you’re reading this, Mum. I’m over it. No, really.
I’ve also watched the opening episode of ‘The Box Of Delights’ tonight, first broadcast on BBC1 in the run-up to Christmas 1984, and still utterly magical. It makes me feel like every brilliant, sugary Christmas of my childhood has been rolled up into a big sticky ball and thrown into my lap, and that’s a nice way to feel at 2.30am on Christmas Eve after half a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream. Time, tide and buttered eggs wait for no man.
I have great plans for this blog in the New Year, and I can’t wait to get cracking on it… but in the meantime, I think I can already hear our old friends from the Chalk Farm Salvation Army Band coming up the road now, so I’ll wish you all…
… a very merry Christmas indeed.
Best wishes,
Bob
Wiffle Lever To Full! 
Nothing quite like The Box of Delights to evoke the traditional trappings of Christmas. The book’s worth a try if you can track down a copy too, it has a few extra magical sequences not included in the TV series. The toy soldiers coming to life and marching into the mousehole at Seekings, the fairy kingdom inside thed trees…