Best wishes, and a very Merry Christmas to everyone who finds this blog 
Here’s a slightly different version of one of my favourite Christmas songs. Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas” performed by the enigmatic Toyah Wilcox on the David Essex Christmas Special in 1982!
Today is the shortest day, and tonight will be the longest night, and regardless of religious scriptures, or personal beliefs, this is the astronomical moment when the northern hemisphere is tilted furthest from the sun…the winter solstice.
If you want to know more about the Winter Solstice, I suggest a read of Wikipedia for a fascinating article. It always amazes me how so many different civilizations and cultures have celebrated this time of year. Whether it be the Norse inspired Hogmanay of Scotland, the murderous Lenaea festival of ancient Greece (The Festival of Wild Women, where a man or bull symbolising Dionysus was torn to pieces and eaten), the ancient (6000 year old) mysteries of the Druidic and Celtic midwinter festivals (a culture which built Newgrange, a tomb/chamber only illuminated on the winter solstice, and the summer solstice Stone Henge), or the youthful (4th century Rome, 11th Century England) Natalis Domini which we know by the modern (and commercialised) name of Christmas, they all occur in alignment with this time of the astronomical year with subtle variations based upon the changes in calendar systems, etc.
What better way to celebrate this midwinter than with Jethro Tull’s 1976 midwinter classic, Ring Solstice Bells:
Firefox 3.5.x Memory Issues
So I’m blogging in Google’s Chrome browser tonight. For whatever reason the latest version of Firefox seems to consume memory at an alarming rate. On my work, and desktop systems this isn’t an issue as they have oodles of RAM and powerful processors to cope with any load issues, but of an evening I like to relax with the netbook, and it’s tiny Atom processor and limited memory means that with Mozilla’s latest version it struggles with multiple tabs, and even starting a fresh instance and just opening WordPress up lead to the keyboard response slowing to a point where I’d finish a word and wait ten seconds for it to complete. This is a big problem when the word was just 8 characters long!
Vimeo
So here I sit with Chrome showing me adverts I never new existed with Firefox’s ad-blocking capabilities, and wondering what to do. In the background I’ve decided that the PS3s fascination with YouTube is an abysmal waste of time, and instead I’m watching the HD channel on Vimeo. If you’re not on Vimeo and enjoy more indie film and less low grade footage, give it a try, and look me up because you know what the user name will be 
Now the PS3 browser plays very nicely with the Vimeo site, and streams beautiful footage to my HD tv. Better still, the HD channel seems to contain a very eclectic mix of beautiful music and wonderful HD videos that make a mesmerising backdrop to this disjointed blogging. (Current track is the magical “Sleep” by a London based singer-songwriter Ethav)
For Christmas eve we have argueably one of the best festive tunes ever, The Christmas Song. The BMI state that this 1944 hit, written by vocalist Mel Tormé and Bob Wells, is the most performed Christmas pop song. The version you’ll hear below was recorded by Nat King Cole in 1961, he’d previously recorded versions of the song in 1946 (twice) and 1953.
So as you race around with the last minute Christmas chores, enjoy the beautiful sound of Nat King Cole performing The Christmas Song.
Just when you thought you’d escaped the British folk rock movement I’ve got another brilliant tune in the chart. Steeleye Span‘s 1974 Christmas hit Gaudete is wonderful for it’s traditional a cappella performance and Maddy Prior‘s haunting vocals.
