Merry Christmas

 In Soviet Russia: rocketships!

Merry Christmas to all the people reading this, and a Moderate Christmas to all those who are not. I shall be tucking into the turkey later [much later actually, as I am writing this days in advance, but sssh, that's ruining the magic of the moment!]

I hope you got a load of nice stuff, and did not receive the AIDS. Santa hands that out to the bad boys & girls, you know. Remember to always put a condom on the end of your candy cane, and make sure the eggnog is fresh before you dip your tongue.... Christ.

Ok so, yeah. Anyway, here is some Christmas music for you. Perhaps not Christmas music in the traditional sense, but it's Christmas for me. Mussorgsky's "Great Gate of Kiev" from his "Pictures at an Exhibition" suite. It's played here in it's original piano form by Belfast born pianist, Barry Douglas. I've heard a lot of stale mechanical versions of this piece, but Douglas's physical enthusiasm for the work just unlocks the music's brilliance. Douglas, along with all his other accolades, is now a professor at the Dublin Institute of Technology.


What else... hmmm... I hope to get around to doing individual Christmas greetings to everyone I know online, in some sort of personal-impersonal way via the Twitter's, Googly Pluses, or email. I wanted to send out some cards this year, but some of those online people are tricky with their addresses, and I was too busy to stalk and do a Magnum PI on them during the year.

Oh yes, I nearly forgot! 20 years ago today, the flag of the Soviet Union was lowered for the final time over the Kremlin as the USSR was officially disolved, after 69 years. Also, the Cyrillic writing on the picture above is actually a New Year's greeting in Russian, as the Atheist state of the USSR didn't recognise the Christian significance of Christmas. All good things, as they say...