I worked in Sweden for a few years, and as a family we limited our contact with fellow English speakers. However, like you, the advent season seems to soothe the mind and release joy. Those images from various churches and cathedrals played an important part.
As for our globalist elite - faithless, dumb, all-powerful - let us hope 2025 is not their year.
Your very amusing article concluded without mentioning who we celebrate at Christmas and why. The clue is in the Name!
My son spent his Uni sandwich year at the Uni in Chongqing. I remember the photos of him surrounded by Chinese friends all wearing Santa hats!! I shall forward your article. Happy Christmas Frederick.
Glad to hear I am not the only one who has been to the small city of 22 million people that nobody seems to have heard of. I hope his stomach fared better than mine!
Can there be a religious feast which has similarly become so detached from it's original message that every 'culture' - even in Dubai Christmas is being 'celebrated' with the appropriate accompaniments', I've been told - that it has been taken on everywhere, across the globe?
The sad point is that only the americanised version of the earlier Victorian one has 'made it' globally. And this, of course, being commercial, isn't tainted by religion even though our 'cultural' elites try to eliminate the word 'Christmas' for fear of offending ...
You also wrote: "all the Awfully Clever people at home who say, self-reverentially, that ‘England has no culture’, [...]" - funny how similarly 'awfully clever' people say exactly the same in Germany about German culture ...these are the 'anywheres' whose snobbism knows no bounds and who only refrain from saying similar things about other countries because that might sound offensive ...
Strip away the gaudy Coca Cola adverts and you can still easily find the things that matter: merriment, family, good food. I am happy for the rest of the world to eat 'candy cane' and watch Will Ferrell films as much as they like, as long we can maintain a semblance of sanity ourselves!
Pubs, my dog, lots of sport. They keep me going for the most part. The first I hope to enjoy for many years, the middle for as long as she blesses us with her presence, and the latter for as long as my knees hold out.
Great piece Frederick and Merry Christmas !. It would do our politicians a lot of good to walk in your old Chinese shoes for a year. Perhaps then they could see what we all can see.
Merry Christmas Frederick!
I worked in Sweden for a few years, and as a family we limited our contact with fellow English speakers. However, like you, the advent season seems to soothe the mind and release joy. Those images from various churches and cathedrals played an important part.
As for our globalist elite - faithless, dumb, all-powerful - let us hope 2025 is not their year.
2025 is going to be yuge! Though I think we have a bit more pain to get through before any sunlit uplands hove into view.
Your very amusing article concluded without mentioning who we celebrate at Christmas and why. The clue is in the Name!
My son spent his Uni sandwich year at the Uni in Chongqing. I remember the photos of him surrounded by Chinese friends all wearing Santa hats!! I shall forward your article. Happy Christmas Frederick.
Chris who? I jest, of course.
Glad to hear I am not the only one who has been to the small city of 22 million people that nobody seems to have heard of. I hope his stomach fared better than mine!
Can there be a religious feast which has similarly become so detached from it's original message that every 'culture' - even in Dubai Christmas is being 'celebrated' with the appropriate accompaniments', I've been told - that it has been taken on everywhere, across the globe?
The sad point is that only the americanised version of the earlier Victorian one has 'made it' globally. And this, of course, being commercial, isn't tainted by religion even though our 'cultural' elites try to eliminate the word 'Christmas' for fear of offending ...
You also wrote: "all the Awfully Clever people at home who say, self-reverentially, that ‘England has no culture’, [...]" - funny how similarly 'awfully clever' people say exactly the same in Germany about German culture ...these are the 'anywheres' whose snobbism knows no bounds and who only refrain from saying similar things about other countries because that might sound offensive ...
Merry Christmas, with lots of music!
Strip away the gaudy Coca Cola adverts and you can still easily find the things that matter: merriment, family, good food. I am happy for the rest of the world to eat 'candy cane' and watch Will Ferrell films as much as they like, as long we can maintain a semblance of sanity ourselves!
Totally agree! My pillars of sanity are my current collie and my music ... what are yours?
Pubs, my dog, lots of sport. They keep me going for the most part. The first I hope to enjoy for many years, the middle for as long as she blesses us with her presence, and the latter for as long as my knees hold out.
Great piece Frederick and Merry Christmas !. It would do our politicians a lot of good to walk in your old Chinese shoes for a year. Perhaps then they could see what we all can see.
We're certainly see the high price paid for a political class which almost entirely went down the Oxbridge - PPE - politico route, that's for sure.