Let's make Ebenezer's Carol No.1 this Christmas!

The plan:

To get Ebenezer's Carol, by The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, to No. 1 in time for Christmas. A proper steampunk Christmas song for Christmas No. 1!

What we need to do to achieve this:

1) For Ebenezer's Carol to chart it needs to sell roughly 8,000 copies. The single needs be downloaded as a single, and not as part of the A Very Steampunk Christmas EP. It's available now from iTunes, eMusic and Amazon.

2) So, forward this message to all your friends (be they steampunks or otherwise) but remind them that they must buy the song by itself for it to get into the singles chart.

3) Blog about this, post a link on your Facebook page, Tweet about it, but most importantly - buy the single Ebenezer's Carol!

4) Arrange events themed around this, call the local press, use your contacts - whatever you've got - and we could really make this happen!

This is a chance for steampunk fans to really make themselves heard and make a difference for the future of Christmas. The fate of Ebenezer's Carol and Christmas music itself is in your hands! Let's make Christmas 2010 a Very Merry Steampunk Christmas!

Paul McCartney's Christmas Concert

Sir Paul McCartney is to play a special, one-off Christmas show in London, his first arena show in the capital in over six years.

The former Beatle will end a seven-date European tour, his first in five years, with a concert at The O2 arena on December 22.

The performance will be 46 years to the day since The Beatles played their first Christmas show at Liverpool's Empire Theatre and it will be McCartney's first arena show in London for over six years.

The 'Good Evening Europe' tour will kick off in Hamburg, Germany, the city where The Beatles played extensively before being signed.

He said: "This is my chance to bring our current show home to where it all began. Starting in Hamburg, ending in London and rocking everywhere in between. I'm very much looking forward to ending the year on a high."

McCartney, 67, has only played a handful of UK shows since his last tour in 2003, including a headline slot at the Glastonbury musical festival in 2004 and a performance at the European Capital of Culture show in Liverpool last year.

Other cities McCartney will be stopping at include Paris, Berlin, and Dublin.

Tickets for the concerts go on sale at 9am on Monday October 26. When he played in Las Vegas earlier this year, tickets sold out in seven seconds.

Dear Santa this Christmas I would like...

Do they know what Myrrh is anyway at Christmas?

My first efforts at making a video, uploading it to YouTube and attempting some blatant self-publicity. Enjoy...



By the way, the music is a cover version of Band Aid's 1984 Christmas number 1 'Do They Know It's Christmas', by the Removal Men (aka, my best friend's stag-do). The track was even played on Radio 1, don't you know.

7 December - Christmas Number 1

In two weeks' time, the Christmas number 1 for 2008 will be announced. But who's it going to be?

Bookies' favourites include the (now) inevitable X Factor winner, but also Peter Kay as his Geraldine McQueen persona. Also in the running (apparently) are Terry Wogan and Aled Jones singing Little Drummer Boy, Leona Lewis, Take That, Rolf Harris and the Fron Male Choir, Bob the Builder and Only Men Aloud (the winners of Last Choir Standing ).

I have to say that Terry and Aled's effort is a poor pastiche of the Bing Crosby and David Bowie classic, which you can enjoy here. But while you do, check out Bing expression - he obviously has no idea who David Bowie is!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

In honour of this morning's half an hour of snow flurries over West London.

A Gaelic Silent Night - Enya style

The New Age Irish songtress doing her thing, this time singing Oíche Chiúin, or rather Silent Night in Gaelic.

Looking for some Christmas music?

During the writing of What is Myrrh Anyway? I listened to quite a lot of Christmas music, to help put me in the mood to write a Christmas book during March and April. As a result, I have a few recommendations for anyone looking for some suitable festive music come this December.






If you fancy going back to the roots of Christmas music, try a Medieval Christmas by The Orlando Consort, or the up-lifting Christus Natus Est, An Early English Christmas, by The Sixteen







For a more secular Christmas, as might have been enjoyed in the Tudor age and beyond, look out for An English Folk Christmas.










And then of course there's the more traditional Carols from Clare or Carols from King's.