The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - Ring the Bells! Mistletoe and Vinyl! Hogswatch Extravaganza 2025!

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan and Francine Carrel, have emerged from Discworld and are now exploring the worlds of speculative fiction. This week: our annual Hogswatch Extravaganza! We’re reviewing Ring the Bells, C.K. McDonnell’s latest entry into the Stranger Times series, then having a delightful chat with Marc Burrows about his new book The Story of the Christmas No. 1: Mistletoe and Vinyl. Find C.K. McDonnell here: https://whitehairedirishman.com/ And take a look at everything Marc’s up to here: https://www.marcburrows.co.uk/ Find us on the internet:Patreon: www.patreon.com/thetruthshallmakeyefretDiscord: https://discord.gg/29wMyuDHGP Want to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on BlueSky @2hatsjo and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Smug Christmas - TikTok Amazon pulls AI recap from Fallout TV show after it made several mistakesClair Obscur sweeps The Game Awards with nine winsR.E.P.O. –Ring the Bells by C K McDonnellBonus: An Interview with C.K. McDonnellWinter wonderland fails: from smoking elves to a 'dead Santa' ‘People came just to see how awful it was’: from Wonkaland to Fyre, the inside story of festivals so bad they went viral–The Story of the Christmas Number One: Mistletoe & Vinyl (signed edition) | ★ MARC BURROWS ★ Mr Blobby Music Video [1993 Christmas Number 1]Marc's Spotify playlists - find the Christmas STAGE 1, 2 & 3 playlists hereThe Hives & Cyndi Lauper In A Christmas Duel Cliff Richard - The Millennium PrayerMarie Antoinette: Teen Queen to Guillotine by Melanie Burrows-Closure May Never Come - P D DolingEllen Mellor's books Music: Chris Collins, indiemusicbox.com

Also, if you're not going to mention my huge cardigan, I'll mention it. That isn't actually... That's my huge cardigan. I think that was all of the word vomiting at you. Apologies for doing that. All right, there weren't that many words. Good. Vomited quite delicately.

Very well, thank you. Try that again. Are we feeling festive? I'm feeling quite festive. This is my first attempt to decorating anything this year. As you can see, I've made a real effort in the last. five minutes or so. And this weekend, I'll, oh wait, no, it's Monday. I should probably do it before then. At some point, I'm going to decorate my house as well. I managed to decorate mine

at the weekend. I've decided my new favourite thing about Christmas is deciding anything can be a tradition slash using tradition to justify whatever I want. What you got? What you got? No, I just, I really fancied a Chinese, so I decided rather than just getting a Chinese, I declared that getting a Chinese after putting up the decorations is a new tradition. Love that, actually. Yeah, because now I get a Chinese. and I've got at least one guaranteed excuse to get a Chinese every year. Yeah. Well, I need one.

No, no, but it's nice to have. Exactly. Hmm. And I meant I didn't have to put up decorations and then cooked dinner. That's not a bad idea. I might nick that. If I do it on Friday, we had a takeaway planned anyway. Yeah.

See, I feel like I could make this catch on as a trend, the decoration Chinese. I will certainly take very little persuading. And lovely listeners with your dear little legs, please write in on a carton for from a Chinese takeaway. Right in on a prawn cracker. On a prawn cracker, much better. That would be very difficult, but we'll appreciate it all the more. I like the challenge.

Yeah. Alright, I'll get back to you after you finished embossing your prawn crackers for the season. Do you not emboss your prawn crackers, Francine? Jesus. I've been seeing tips on how to be really smug at Christmas. It was a series I saw on TikTok. Chattneys, obviously. Smug chutney, yep.

Smug chutney's. Great character name, actually. Carry on. The thing is, I've always thought I'm someone who could be quite smug about Christmas, but this list is making me realize that I'm nowhere near enough. Get your gifts professionally wrapped. Oh, fuck off. Oh, yeah, no. Go to queue gardens and make it a regular thing.

Oh, we always do Christmas at Q. Ooh. Yeah. I do quite like that. Not that I would actually go, because I assume it's horribly crowded when they've got all the lights and things, and that sounds horrible. Yeah. But find out what it entails, then you can tell people you do.

Exactly. Don't tell honest, listeners. Listeners, please join us in this mass conspiracy for me to convince people I go to Q at Christmas. With chutney. With chutney. Get a lazy Susan for the table. We don't pass plates. We just turn gently.

Well, I don't know about that, actually. How big is this lazy Susan going to have to be? Because I feel like a smug Christmas must involve putting casserole dishes onto the table, onto the heat-proof mats. I see, that's where I'm more at. I do like to serve things kind of buffet style. Yeah. And I don't know if a lazy Susan contributes to that. But I am picturing the kind of giant, multi-tiered lazy Susans they had the Chinese we used to go to up north.

Quite a hard-working, Susan. Yeah, actually quite a diligent Susan, you find. Which brings us back to Hogswatch. Cool, good. Okay. My news story for the soft open, Amazon's AI, previously on fucking up massively. Oh, the Fallout one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazon pulls AI-powered Fallout recap after getting key story details wrong. And yeah, basically exactly how it sounds. Amazon Video decided to use an AI tool to pick out the key story elements of series one of

Fallout and use it as like a promo preview for season two. And it got it wrong. And I'm bringing this up because I write the previously on for this podcast and that is one part of my job that I know is safe now because Joanna, I know Joanna you've been eyeing up for the AI replacements. Yes, that is absolutely something I've been doing.

No, no, I've not been at I. She tried to recruit Clippy before this new Jen came up. I actually asked Clippy to make this podcast with me before I asked Francine. I'm back on Clare Obscure because they did a, they said when they reached five million copies, we've got DLC coming and it's going to be free and they didn't announce any kind of release date and then they shadow dropped the DLC while doing the acceptance speech

for getting game of the year which was an absolute delight. Did I tell you about repo? That's the other game I've been playing with friends. Oh, no, you didn't. Sorry, I was thought you meant the genetic opera for a second there. No, no, no. It's a game where you are, it's a multiplayer game

and you wander around weird haunted locations trying to get valuables into a trolley and there are horrible, quite scary ghosts around and I've had it explaining multiplayer games but it's very, very funny to play with friends and I kind of want to rope you and our other friend into playing with me because I think it would be

just really very funny. It's one of those ones, and this is like a secret ingredient to multiplayer games that hadn't realised made everything so much funnier, which is the further way you get from someone in game, the quieter they are because the audio is through the thing. Right.

And there's just something so funny about hearing somebody, like, go into the distance as they're being fucked up by a ghost. Okay, that does sound really fun. We should definitely play this. But true. Peek was another one like that. Yeah, definitely give this a go at some point then. I'm very down for that. I'm quite careful with playing multiplayer games because, unfortunately, I have learned about myself that I am occasionally a bit controlling.

Which is fine with, like, playing Valheim with just my partner, because my partner has just accepted this facet of my personality. But I did, I can't remember. I don't think we've recorded since I did like a charity pub crawl quiz thing a couple of weekends ago. It was a thing where you're like in teams and you get given all these questions and you have to work out which order you go to the pubs and spot things along the way and take pictures and find things in the pubs. And I sort of ended up being arranged onto a team by someone else from this friendship group and then sat down with the team and then realized like I'm more competitive than I realize and I'm definitely more competitive than anyone else in this group and I've

I've got the pen now, and I've got the paper now. I became someone, Francine. Oh, are you one of those people that argues? Only occasionally. If I feel very strongly about it. Unless it's, like, objectively wrong. The only time I've, like, fully argued, like, I will die on this hill argue, me and the team that had the correct answer that they said wasn't correct,

gave each other the point, was an incorrect food question. Yeah, yeah. And I still kind of annoyed about that to this day. What is it? Can you remember it? It was which of the French mother sources is based with egg yolks and clarified butter? And the answer is Hollandez. I was going to get that.

I wasn't. I was about to say Bolognaise, but close. Very close. Bolognaise has more tomatoes than their egg yolks. And it's Italian. And it's Italian. But apart from that, really close. Thank you.

But the answer they gave was Bernays, and Bernays is a derivative of Hollandez with other things added to it. Oh. I'm still on. night. It's been a long time. I'm still quite talking about it. I don't think you're wrong for arguing that. It's just personally, I just go beat red. I promise if you and I ever do a quiz together, I will not argue unless it's something really stupid. Okay, okay. Like that. Also, I could probably get behind you arguing something to be fair. You tell me to be more. I'll be the one leading from the seconds. Yeah. You've told me to defend my opinions more. It's all I'm doing.

well yeah but it's not opinions in a quiz is it you're right exactly yeah i feel like i should defend that exactly yeah all right well i promise to be less obnoxious on the podcast today not not obnoxious just okay um i'm not i'm now scanning the plan desperately hoping for nothing that we can argue about gonna throw in some controversy for ships and games what what fine i'm sure i'm sure i'm We'd love to hear you go up with, like, a bunch of controversial opinions that A, won't make you look like a lanker, and B, I won't just go, yeah, actually, they make us both look like wankers. Let's go for it. Yeah, I can't think of anything now.

Especially as we're talking about two books that's written by friends. That we both really like. Soon to be ex-friends of the podcast. All right, we'll do a controversial Christmas. opinion before we get into talking about our friends' books. Mint pies are bad. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah, there we go.

That's my controversial. Yeah, I actually don't disagree with that, unfortunately. That's the best thing you come up with. I can't stand mince pies. Every year, I smell them, and I'm like, oh, that smells amazing. And I have a bite, and I'm like, I don't really like mint pies, which is, A, controversial and B, food waste, which is almost universally planned as a concept. So, there we go.

Yep. Well, I'm glad we've got our awful people credentials. on that festive note do you want to make a podcast? Yeah let's make a podcast quickly before it goes much worse Hello and welcome to the true show make you fret a podcast in which we were reading and recapping every book in Terry Prattitz Discworld series and now we're wandering around the corridors of speculative fiction

I'm Joanna Hagan I'm Francine Carol and today is a hogs watch extravagan Hazzar! It's back again, another year gone, another Hogswatch on the nearby horizon. Oh, good, yeah, yeah. We can hear, if you listen carefully, the glinkle of bells and the snorts, grunts and alarming trotting of several of the side balls. I hope not that's one to happen until later. I mean, anyway. Yeah, but write on the horizon. Right. Oh, right on the horizon. Yeah. Today, we are talking about two wonderful books. It's the Friends of the Pod Christmas book, special. It is a bit, isn't it? Yeah.

It is. Two excellent friends off the pod have brought out festive books. So first up, we're going to talk about C.K. McDonald's latest entry into the Stranger Time series, Ring the Bells. And then later on, we're going to be joined by a very special guest, three guests, too, to talk about Missile Terminal, The History of the Christmas Number One by Mark Burroughs. Very blurred edition you've got there, Joanna. Yes, well, you've got the good webcam. I turned off the portrait mode. Oh, yeah, that's probably better. It was ruining my really carefully hung Christmas life.

Yeah, so, spoiler warning quickly before we crack on. As far as ring the bells go, we're not going to do any major spoilers for this or any of the books in the Stranger Time series, so you can go and check them out. Why haven't you done that already, though? Come on, guys. I feel like we told you this in 2022. 2023. Oh, fine. But right at the beginning, so almost 2022.

And I guess no spoilers for Missile Term Final, the history of the Christmas number one. I'm not sure what the deal is with spoiling nonfiction books. I think maybe as long as we don't accurately predict this year as Christmas number one and allow Mark to do that. Yeah, that should be fine. Sorry, our special surprise. Our special mystery guest coming on to talk about Mark Burroughs new book. Yeah. Amazingly, it's Kylie.

but she's going to be upside down because she's calling in from Australia. That's how that works. It's why the Pratchat one is so hard to edit. Yeah, no, that took a lot of time. Right, so yeah, starting then with Ring the Bells by C.K. McDonald. So as we've mentioned, the lovely Cove MacDonald, who we've decided as friend of the podcast, we've had a drink with him once, so it counts.

It came on the podcast back in February 2023, and that was when the third book in the Stranger Time series came out. Cuea was the author of many excellent books, as well as the wonderful urban fantasy mystery, quite funny, Stranger Times. There is the 14-nish-long Bunny McGarry trilogy. 14 is it?

I'm not sure. A quick scheme of the website, and I think I ended up with 14. Wow. It's been off some short stories and all sorts. Prolific author. Excellent prolific author. who has also drawn some quite fair comparisons to Terry Pratchett,

which is how we ended up on the podcast in the first place. Yeah, yeah. And today, yeah, we're talking about Ring the Bells, which is the fifth book in the Stranger Time series. It's a Christmas special. It is a Christmas special. And you don't get those very often. No.

Really, it would have been stilly of us not to jump on the opportunity. It'll be very rude about it. But as I've already said, spoiler-free, so you, dear listener, can come on this journey with us. Yeah, I haven't got one of those ready. through the mean streets of Manchester. So opening snapshot then, do you like it? Yes, very much.

It is one of the few, well, Keeve is, we should say CK McDonald's, probably what you want to be Googling, by the way, to find these books. But Kweave is one of the few authors who does make me properly laugh out loud. Very much so. I hugely value that in a book. It was a difficult fighting the urge to text. all of the funny lines to you as I was reading it because I knew we were going to talk about the book. Yeah. There's a lot of great one-liners though and spoilers listeners, but in a minute

we'll talk about some of our favourite lines because I've got a few. I managed to narrow the list down a little bit. I quite like because this is, I really like this series, but it's not one that I've started picking up and rereading once a year, which doesn't mean it's bad. It's just not quite made it to my must comfort reread Pantheon yet. I'm sure it will eventually. But that means but every time I pick up a Stranger Times book, I get to be, like, re-delighted about how really good they are. Yeah, absolutely. And it is handy, actually, that it starts with a little recap,

somewhat more effective than Amazon AI ones. Yeah, no, these are quite good previously on. Yeah, yeah, quite poetic even. But, yeah, no, it's good. I, you know, me, I love the concept anyway. I'm sure I talk, I can barely remember the 2023 episode we did it on this, by the way. That was a multitude of reasons, but.

That was an interview with Quiv so I think we talked less about how much we like the books apart from starting off with, we really like the books. Yeah, but yeah, no, huge fan of the concept in general. It's based in the offices of a 40 and Times like publication, except in this universe, quite a lot of the... Strange things are real. Yes, yes.

It's got some wonderful... what's the word, relics of the printage still stuck in there. Yeah, personally, I love those stuff, partly because, you know, my first few jobs were print magazines and there is just a certain about watching somebody else suffer through the deadline process, even if I never or rarely had to deal with supernatural delays. We weren't talking about that time at the Jeep magazine. Sorry, Land Rover.

Do we do the blurb for this one? I think we can do the blurb for this one. That's not spoilery. I'll leave that to you as you've got the physical coffee. Which is a bit of a hefty book as well. You're getting value for money with this one. Yeah. And doubles as a weapon.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Now, for most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation. I didn't practice this. But not for the staff of the Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn't unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book club triple murder either, as it seems to involve a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity

who has broken through from another dimension and is hell-bent on vengeance. Said entity has made a not-so-little list, but he's not checking it twice as the whole of humanity is on it. Who would want to summon such a thing? And importantly, how is anyone going to be able to send it back? As if that wasn't enough to be dealing with, there's a shocking revelation about a member of the Stranger Times team's past. It will bring family together,

which is, of course, part of what Christmas is all about, but not in a way that stands a chance of making it into a Hallmark movie. And what with demonically possessed Santa's, bloodthirsty books, and the ghost of a legendary nightclub, it's beginning to look a lot like a Christmas apocalypse for The Stranger Times. I'd watch this Hallmark movie. I would 100% watch this Hallmark movie. So do you like the idea of, like, an ongoing book series doing a Christmas special?

Yes, I think so. I think a Christmas special is a pretty good excuse. to shake everything up of it, you know, like a snow glove, I suppose. Oh, a delightful way to be terribly tweeve with it. But no, because you're kind of shoving people out of the normal routine anyway. It's a good excuse to, well, quite often just get your characters drunk or at an awkward party or whatever. Or in this case.

Crammed around a table. Yeah. In this case, because we're working like in a print publication, the kind of, you know, premise of the first bit is, we're stuck here till deadline. Again, enjoyable to read. Absolutely. Yeah, and I love it. How about you?

Is it something that comes up? What do you mean? Like, is this the only one we can think of? I can't think of tons of them. It's not like a very commonplace thing, I think. But I was thinking about this very much in relation to TV, because I know, like, Cueve originally envisioned this series as a TV series. And as he mentioned in our lovely little chat with him, we'll link to that down below as well.

I'm going like this, like I'm going to put a link above, like, in the old style YouTube videos. I'm not. And he wrote for TV as well before writing lovely novels. I'm assuming there was some overlap. And I'm a massive sucker for TV show Christmas specials for the same reason. Like, you get to put people in a weird situation, even if it is just shoving them all in a room together when they normally wouldn't be or shoving drinks in their hands when they never would normally be having a drink. Yeah, I'm going to call it a bottleneck episode, despite the fact I now know that's not what it's called. Bottle episode?

Bottle episode. Just a bottle episode. There we go. There is also a good opportunity to do bottle episodes. Like famously, obviously I relate everything to sitcoms because it's what I do. Like, friends used to use the Thanksgiving episodes to do bottle episodes and shove everyone in one room. that would normally be like a money-saving episode for them. And then they started doing silly things.

But yeah, so holiday specials, always fun. But it's, I think of like TV Christmas specials as a very British thing as well, because you have a lot of, like, the sitcoms coming back for a one-off Christmas special. A different flavour, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's not part of an ongoing narrative, it's coming back for one year, having maybe been off air for a couple of years. So like, Gavin and Stacey, which admittedly I've not watched, or I've not watched the Christmas specials because I don't really like Gavin and

So you can't be, you can't have good taste and everything. I love the Christmas special. So very good. These are my controversial opinions for the day. Oh, there you go. But yeah, I think the British Christmas special is quite a different flavour and it's not generally as earnest, which is quite nice. It's generally an earnest moment, isn't that? But it's not. There'll be one hot moment. Like, I used to really love my family and I always really loved the Christmas episodes of that one. Yeah. Ghosts did its finale as a Christmas special and made me cry the bastards.

That's another thing. I will get like appropriately sentimental if you give me a Christmas special. Oh yeah, it's very easy for a Christmas special to make me weepy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This book managed it. Yes, this book managed it several times. Thank you, Creeve. They're not necessarily for festive reasons.

At least one of them was going. kind of festive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's not like the classic, you know, starting to cry because they're all standing around a piano singing Silent Night. Like, the American, you know, I say this kind, I said it a bit dismissively, like the Americans go a bit sentimental with it. I'm a sucker for it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's just a different flavor. You get me a bunch of loved sitcom characters singing Silent Night, right on a piano. I'm so like, oh, it is silent. Also, one of my weird favorite things about American TV Christmas specials, and this is hyper-specific, but we're going to talk about Christmas music later, obviously.

You will always hear the waitresses song, Christmas rapping, at some point in the background of those episodes. And it's one of my favourite Christmas songs. And it's always, I'm watching Gilmore Girls at the moment because I'm off work for Christmas. And so I wanted to watch something that I don't have to write about. And that's the easiest, gentle, goes into my brain. And yeah, Christmas episode, the waitresses in the background.

Yeah. Is it in the, it's in Bridget Jones, isn't it? definitely that song yeah yeah yeah I had the uh the Bridgett jones soundtrack on the other day because just seemed like a good pre-made playlist um yeah and yeah absolutely it was it was a good transition into Christmas playlists actually yeah yeah I want to watch Bridgett Jones again anyway fuck right uh let's go a bit more specific within speculative fiction yes how about Christmas within that I just want more Christmas specials in every genre yeah But especially speculative fiction in fantasy and in sci-fi, because you take one of these very traditional trappings, so there is some kind of guy in a red suit with a white beard, there is probably gathering around a piano and singing, there is gifts, there is feasting, and then you can do really weird stuff with it.

There's a major plot point, I won't spoil in this book, but when I spotted that that was going to happen, I had a proper sort of joyful grit, of course, that's going to happen. That's great. That's exactly what you want to happen and this kind of flavour of Christmas story. Yeah. And this story actually, within the first few pages, they're definitely not not, definitely not a spoilery. We get the framing and like the here is the the the momentum of the narrative. Yes, the momentum of the events. Yeah, yeah. Which we, we, we of course have seen in Hogfather. Yes. And yeah, no, you're right, because that that frame, that, not frame, the template almost. of solstice celebrations is, you know, massively transcends just what we now think of as one Christmas and so you can kind of imprinted on whatever you want. Yeah, you can have this idea

that Pratchett does with Hogfather celebrating coming out of the dark. Yeah, yeah. And it's why, you know, you want to say sci-fi Christmas specials. The Doctor Who Christmas special every year is a very British tradition. Obviously, there's me trying to think about X-Piles. Doctor Who's right there. Wait a bit of a screwdriver in your face And we did, like there is a There is a Rivers of London Like Christmas novella or short story Although CK McDonald has outdone it

By doing a full-sized novel Yeah, and I want more authors to do this Take that up Ben Not sure we need to put them in competition But just in case, Kweep has won Fight, fight, fight, fight, blood on the snow, all that Yay! Blood on the snow, blood on the snow,

very bloodthirsty around Christmas we get It's just, I feel like there's so much you can do with it. And it's great because you have a framework that the reader's already so familiar with. Yeah, yeah. It takes very little to establish, like, the Hogfather is a festive novel. If you haven't seen the cover and you dive into it, you know it's a Christmas book from, like, the first three pages. Yeah. Because weirdly, you can just hear the slave elves.

Yeah, no, they actually just start playing the movie from the book. Yeah. And then within, like, this sub-genre of particularly, like, urban fantasy, And then particularly British urban fantasy, you also get the, you know, we don't even have to go too weird with the template. We know this Christmas. We know exactly what this Christmas. We know what that office party is like. Yeah.

We know what the office party is like. We know what the streets are like as Seiko McDonald's like explaining the background sound effects of vomiting. Yeah. We know what the horrible pubs are like. Yeah. Yes. I'm reading it and going, do you know what? I kind of missed this.

But at the same time, I'm so glad I don't do. this anymore but like I know it beat for beat. And that's nice because I think you can do so much more weirdness when you've already got such a familiar background and like with Christmas it's kind of done for you. So even though the book is, you know, you heard the blood, there's a lot going on. It still comes with this little bit of nostalgia of, oh yeah, I listen to that at Christmas. Yeah. No, actually, it's good point. Because it's one of the great things about like the genre, isn't it? Like urban fantasy, realistic fantasy, whatever you want to call it. Probably not realistic fantasy. but it's very funny it's also yeah it's just a hilarious but there are some very very good

mental images there's a particular good one involving a cow yes I will say also like there are some horrifying mental images oh yeah no it's a real real fucking oh my god that's not leaving my brain stuff yeah it's a tough read in places like I'm thinking but like in a good way it's a really good read um but it's a like thinking about the adaptability of it and I think like the Stranger Time series is very adaptable you can tell it's coming from someone who's worked in television yeah but I do feel like you'd maybe have to be careful with a few scenes at least you definitely want a content warning on it yeah but the thing is it's so impactful largely

because of that and I think that's where I would struggle to do the adapting bit because I wouldn't know where to soften the edges to make it TVable yeah but then also you know people are happy to watch the Stranger Time Spinschrop, not Stranger Time, Stranger Things spinstrop around Christmas, and that's quite dark and gory. Yeah. So I feel like there's space for it.

You might need to, actually, that's a good point. Stranger Things might have ruined the obvious branding of this. I feel like you can differentiate the branding enough. Yeah. Trips off the time. I'm not my job to adapt it. I'm just going to write some letters to the BBC and hope they do it. Probably get CK's permission, eh?

Yeah, all right, fine, I must give you minds. Speaking... Sorry, go ahead. I was just to say, speaking of terrible British Christmas traditions. Well, exactly, yeah. One of the subplots within this involves what is a terrible winter wonderland,

like the cut price, budget, shit version of the lovely winter wonderland thing you'd get in Gilmore girls, probably. I don't know. And I just thought I'd highlight that. as one of the great British traditions, which is every year you get at least a few news stories

talking about just a really dreadfully put together a seasonal pop-up event. And it's one of my favourite things to read every year. Santa was crap, the reindeer were not reindeer. Yes, yeah. And it's miserable and grey. Yeah, yeah.

Highlight here I've got, New Forest, Santa's fucking. dead. So this is from an article from 2014. And honestly, I don't even care. It's over a decade old. This is how timeless this genre of news story is. And it was highlighting some even older ones. But I might find just an entire list of these just to put a local one. I think like last year or the year before, we had a local one that people, children were leaving crying because it was so bad. Oh, so good. But yeah, obviously very bad. Children crying. Sad, sad. Yeah. But also hilarious to read about.

Oh, so funny. But yeah, so, I'll just read this last one. The accolade for worst winter wonderland catastrophe is still held by the short-lived Lattland New Forest experience at Matcham's Leisure Park in 2008. Advertisements promised a place where dreams really do come true with an ice rink in a nativity scene. But the ice rink was broken.

The nativity scene was painted on a billboard in a muddy field. One Santa and several elves were attacked by angry parents. Two dads brawled in the gingerbread house. and one snowman received so much verbal abuse, he stormed off in full costume, reported the sun. Trading standards received more than 2,000 complaints, and the RSPCA launched an investigation. That's not quite as funny about the husky dogs and rainiers.

The attraction closed down after six days and families who turned up with prepaid tickets were told by one helper, Santa's fucking dead. And that really does sum up the genre, I think. It does. This real-life genre. but we got like a new flavor this year didn't we like not Christmas yeah I was going to say I feel like he took quite a lot of inspiration from the whole

Wonka Land situation oh do you reckon I was trying to work out when he might have written this because it's quite good I like reading contemporary things because I don't a lot I read so much fantasy and everything is set in a different world or 500 years ago or so it's very funny getting the actual very contemporary jokes and the depictions of the terrible Winter Wonderland in this do sound very Wonka land Oh yeah, but I feel like Wonka Land was just a derivative of these decades-old news stories. Oh yeah, true. I don't think it was entirely from that, but I wonder if there was a bit of specific

Possibly so, possibly say. Bits of pieces to borrow. Couldn't have hurt. But Wonka Land, yeah, was just an example of how to take the terrible British Christmas Wonderland experience and make it unseasonal. Truly an innovator in what we thought was a sewn up field. and for that we applaud them very much so

I never actually followed up what happened at those guys they ran away they'd probably pop back up again in Milton Keynes now wasn't they? They probably got a winter wonderland or oh god see AI rained it

right there's a parody song there we're getting on that not right now had a very shiny eight noses for some reason oh dear all right all right we're closing in on the end of the first half, so we'd better get down to your huge short list of favourite lines,

Joanna, they can't edit things. It's not that long. I picked three, and they're all really short. The first one, he was sitting with a bemuse look on his face, like a pastry chef, who'd mistakenly walked into a lecturer on astrophysics. Beautiful. Possibly the best. Oh, we love the thudding metaphors. Oh, well done.

Yep. Thudding. Simile, yes. Simile is a subgenre of metaphor, so it's a. Okay. Yes. But speaking as someone who's quite good at baking and scared of physics, that line reached down into my soul quite deeply. Next one. Did you hire a magician? Ask Clermont. No, I think if you have enough people, they just turn up. Now, is that true? Yes. Well, not what happens is they're actually around you all of the time. It's just when the gathering reaches a certain mass, they start doing the tricks. Oh, oh, no, like an eternal flash mob. Yeah, basically. There actually, you never know you could be near a stand-up magician right now. Oh, God.

Not stand-up, close-up magician. And the last one, Ox was definitely awake. It was just that reality had jumped the shark. There was a T-Rex involved. Yeah. How about you? I've gone for actually more on the metaphors. Professor Wink, Professor Richard Winkler

commented, I know what you're thinking. How can a metaphor explode? We have literally no bloody idea, but I'll tell you now, it's not a good sign, is it? I mean, is it? We don't know, but I'm stocking up on canned goods regardless. I will be giving no further context. That is also my favourite thing about having a spoiler-free discussion about something is saying some things without context. I think it's more fun. Not only can we not be bothered to give context, we're not allowed, actually. It is possible at some point we'll come back and do a deeper with spoilers revisit of strange times. Well, I do want to, yeah. Yeah, I'd like to do that.

I think that's quite likely. Do you have any other thoughts about this book? I mean, if we go general, we could be here a minute. Oh, right. Yeah, no. I mean, really, we've kind of covered it. It's just, I'm really impressed by what an emotional roller coaster it is. Like, it goes from very, very funny to genuinely very upsetting within only a couple of pages, kind of easing you out from on to the other. yeah so it's not even like a roller coaster it's like one of these fairground rides that kind of goes blah blah up and down but it's so well recent you don't get the horrible emotional whiplash oh no I did yeah yeah but that's fine that's within the book that's the point if you don't get the emotional whiplash then what are you paying the dodgy fairground for as it were not to call your doddy fairground pretty sorry but you know oh yes the dodgy fairground of rides it's maybe not going to

take that one for a cover quote well um one thing I forgot to mention, there's an opening, closing, like, storyteller structure that I really adored, and it felt very Christmassy. And the other thing, again, without spoilers, power of belief is really present here. You know how I feel about power of belief, Francie. Got the power of belief, we've got momentum of the story, we've got all of the things we love. Yes. Wrapped up in a Christmas bow, and I sound all sarcastic, but I'm not.

It's a very good book. And I'm just talking about the, I'm talking in this voice because it's the, you know, the crashing inevitability of the, The universal storytelling wonders that I always fucking love. Say that. So there. I'm going to use the power of belief to squeeze in one more quote as well, which is he had found belief.

He just needed to figure out how to get it. He needed to become the one known as Taylor Swift. Oh. So if we haven't made it clear already, dear listeners, go by Ring the Bells by C.K. McDonald. It's out now. And if you've not read the other four Stranger Times, books, go and get those two.

Or put it on your list for the Hogfather. I expect you can buy them as a box set as some kind of festive gift. That would make an excellent festive gift. It would make a good festive gift, wouldn't it, do I know. I don't know I'm saying festive gift like I'm BBC in Christmas. Other festive celebrations are available. Remember, dear listeners, that it is possible to purchase yourself festive gifts, such as a five-book box set of CK. by Donald's Ranger Time season.

I don't know. I've been getting over a cold and I thought it'd gone. I think it hasn't. Stick a cinnamon stick in your lem sip. It'll be lovely and festive. Oh, God. That seems somehow like it's going to be poisonous, doesn't it, though? It does sound actually quite dangerous. Yeah, it's like it'd be mixed cleaning fluids. Or it might burn, like, sodium. I don't know. Oh, a nice mould lem sip. I just feel like it's going to go up like a flare if I add cinnamon to the lebship. And in fact, I'm going to imagine it will and never try it out.

I'm just going to tell people that's what happens. The problem is I'm really curious now. I want to know what happens when you mull lemps it. Well, actually, I'll tell you exactly what happens. If you put a cinnamon stick into your lempset, it burns magenta like lithium. Does lithium do magenta? Is that one of the other ones? Do you really think I know the answer to that?

Potassium, maybe. Potassium, no, potassium burns white. No, that's magnesium. It's been a long time since GCSE chemistry. Like, if I sing that in my head, Tom Lira is going to tell me what colour they burn. He might. He might. It will be entirely made up by me, though.

Ghost of Tom Lera past appearing on the podcast. We've had worse things appear on the podcast. I was going to say, we can only hope, to be honest, it might save us. Be honest, would we bump Mark Burroughs if Tom Lera turned up right now? 100%. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, no, sorry, Mark here. The ghost of Tom Lira turns up.

We're going to interview the ghost of Tom Lera. Yeah, afraid so. Speaking of, actually, not of Tom Lera, unfortunately, but of Mark, as we've got a few minutes before he arrives, do you want to go and make another Mold wine? Yes, I'll go. As we've got a second. Yeah, okay, right.

I'll be bad. Seriously, I'm going to enjoy my non-mulled lemts there, like a plebvre. Oh. Well, listeners, here we are again for the Fethyst all six hogswatch in a row, and I'm sorry I'm not looking as festive. Well, maybe I look as festive, sounding as festive as normal, but it's a school night, and I've put a little emceph on the go, but you can see that I've made an effort with the lights. And oh my God, not again. Are those glingled bells in the distance while Joanna is downstairs making mould wine?

Hogfather. Mary Hogs watch, Francine. I'm starting to feel like you're doing this on purpose. I'm doing what on purpose, Francine? I've just come to wish you and Joanna and Mary Hogg. Have I missed Joanna again, Hogfather? Would I do that? Would I do that? I forgot on how to see the voice.

Would I do that on purpose? You certainly would not I'm sorry to even suggest it It's been a long evening It's been a long year It's been a long year Francine But soon it will be over

It'll be coming out That sounds like you're about to put a pillow Over my face Good grief Mary Hogswatch Shh Quiet now Mary Hogswatch

How's your feet It's been a delight Francine I've been hibernating Until I go out once a year. Is that how that works? Very much so, I'm sure. Have you been a good person being this year, Francine? Do you know what? I've been all right, actually, yeah. Excellent. And what would you like for Hoxwatch? For Hoxwatch, I would like a really big tray of stuffing and gravy with maybe some

Yorkshire puddings if I've been very good. Excellent, Francine. And you shall have a large tray of stuffing and gravy and maybe even some Yorkshire puddings. It's very good of you to come around to vegetarian option. I can make a half decent vegetarian. Well, I can have an elf make a half decent vegetarian. Thank you. Yeah. No, I appreciate you wouldn't want to dirty your hands for that kind of thing, really. Absolutely not. Now, we've got some letters, Francine. Oh, have we? Oh, marvellous. I'm glad you got them. Some of your dear Giepel, as I believe they're known. Yes, although the way you say it makes it sound a bit like a slur, but yes. They've sent us some letters. Good.

now first of all hello miss red rat miss red rat has offered to leave some absolutely delightful treats that i absolutely won't say no to including a mug of whiskey and has offered to has warned us that the whistling noise is fine it's just the very proud quails very happy for the quails miss red rat and a portal to the disc welder's coming any day now we promise oh good great

remember to get your adventure bag properly ready Brian fan Jeff off of Discord Jeff off of Discord I would like to know my as in the Hogfather because that is me my favourite book

and I think the answer should be very obvious Francine what do you think my favourite book is is it the Hogfather Hogfather no I mean that one's quite good

but obviously my favourite book is American teen dramas from Sunnydale to Riverdale by Joanna Hagan available now from all good retailers I'm so glad you got your copy because sometimes the postage to the

oh Christ, where do you live? The hub? Yeah, it's out of the hub. It's not in the North Pole, is it? It's hubwards-ish. Yeah, hubwards. In the bone palace, sometimes the postage, the bone palace is slow. I'll put it that way. The ships keep getting stuck and the ice, oh, I suppose nowadays

Moist Von Litvigs sorted out those golem. He's done his good work and Joanna, who, despite apparently avoiding me, was still nice enough to sign one. In Joanna's, in Joanna's defence, she is mulling at the moment. Oh, that's important task, actually. That is proper hogswatch activity.

That is a hogswatch activity. I'll allow it. Karen has written via electronic albatross. Marvelous technology we've got these days. Karen would like hair ties and wouldn't we fucking all? Wow. They just disappear. I know I had a good day for that today, actually.

I found three instead of losing any. It is a hogswatch miracle. It is a miracle. Maybe I had something to do. do with it. You never know. Karen would also like for all insufferably stupid

brackets on purpose, brackets people, to have one wet sock at all times even when they're not wearing socks. And Karen, that's a good wish. Yeah. Single damp socks. So just like this insane,

like a phantom sock. Phantom damp sock. Ooh. Which is also the name of my first album. Craig would like again to have world peace and happiness, which Yeah, Craig does keep asking for this Hogfather.

And Craig has been... And he's been very good. He has, even by his own precision measurements, he says he has been very good this year and has written some, read some books even by splendid authors. But you can't just be wishing for peace and happiness. It's got to be selfish, Craig. Come on.

Look at this, look at the set of his skull. This hogfather has no need for tweet. charitable wishes. Exactly. You shall have a satsuma, Craig. Oh, well, that's something. No scurvy for Craig. Well, quite.

And Dennis, age 41 years and 11 months, has written. He has been an adequate boy, which is acceptable, and would like Lego to finally create a disc world set, specifically a several thousand piece recreation of the disc riding atop the elephants and turtle. Oh, lovely, yeah. yeah and that's fine that's what i want to dennis me the hogfather that i am i mean you've got most of the year to build lego haven't you so exactly however while i can

offer gifts of lego they will come with the knowledge that at some point you're going to step on it there are some miracles even the hogfather can't achieve that's just narrativeium and lastly the wonderful pd mod extraordinaire has had an exciting year of theatricality and writing delights. He has, and has sent wishes to all of the lovely Giepil as well, Mary Hogsworth. To all the joyous people, and our dear little co-host, despite their legs becoming so multitudinous of late that they're bordering on the Eldritch. Oh gosh.

How do you know? You can't see it. I mean, Joanna and Francie. I'm from legs at none of your business. PD has neglected to the side. That's just the carcinization thing, is it? The cramper. And actually all podcast hosts do grow extra legs and kiteness scuttling.

Must be it. PD is neglected to ask for anything, the silly chap. Don't you know that you're supposed to demand things this time of year? So PD should be getting good vibes, delightful amounts of gaming time, and also a satsuma. Those are all of the letters. And Joanna seems to appear to still be mulling. so I think, unfortunately, the pigs are getting restless.

I'm going to have to miss it once again. I'm afraid. See if you can swing by later maybe, because we've got another guest coming. Another guest. I know, and it's a shame, but it's only me who gets to enjoy a wonderful company every year. Sadly for now,

Hogs watch blessings to all, but I must be off the pigs are reckless, but maybe, just maybe. The pigs are reckless, are they? Reckless and restless. Good grief. I do love the glingle bells. Do you know what?

I told Joanna I'd try and find some rattling chains for a later bit. And I just, I didn't even try, because it's one of those things I feel like you know you have or you don't. And I just don't think I've got heavy rattling chains in the garage. Right. I am mould. Did I miss anything? No. Can't remember.

Really good lengths at this. I added that cinnamon stick Hello and welcome back to the truth shall make you fret And for the second part of our Hogswatch extravaganza We've got a very special guest As somewhat foreshadowed earlier We have a very good friend of the podcast

Mark Burroughs on As you should all very clearly remember Mark Burroughs is a music critic He is an author Most notably in our case Of The Magic of Terry Pratchett He is a comedian and a musician and all these things.

And for our purposes today, a lot of those things have coincided in his new book, The Story of the Christmas number one, mistletoe and vinyl. Hello, Mark. Hello. I like to think I'm a very special guest in the same way that something can be a very special episode.

Yes, and we will be offering counselling for everybody. If you've been affected by any of the issues. I have nothing more but a conduit for people trauma, an exploration of a big issue of the day. I've always wondered why you had that on the business cards, but yeah. I read all about very special episodes in this excellent book, American teen dramas by Joanna Hagan, which has got this incredible cover by Fancy Carroll. You know, reversed us.

We're supposed to be promoting you, but thank you. Yeah, speaking of trauma, Christmas. Yeah, welcome to the pod, Mark. Let's see, Christmas is never trauma for me. I genuinely love Christmas. I am Christmas, I am like famously, I'm famous for really loving Christmas. It's, it's kind of my thing. And I don't, I don't know why that is.

I've just always been a Christmas guy. I read like the music, the films, everything. I have to be really careful. I have to ration it really specifically. Otherwise I get to make sure that it just maintains its magic. Otherwise, because I can't go, I can't go Christmas till December the first. But then once it gets to December 1st, I go hard and I go heavy. kind of revs up before that yeah exactly and so yeah I'm so I'm at the I am at my peak at this time which is good because I've just written a book about Christmas and thus which can only thus be promoted in December with any kind without annoying people and that means all of the promotion for the book has been squeezed into like into like two and a half weeks and I have barely slept since the month again but in a festive way kept going by

festive further. Yeah, basically, festive further and further and further and further. Very nice. So, beyond the subtitle of the story of the Christmas number one, could you explain Missile Thurn Final to us? I can. Well, I mean, actually, the original title was going to be Tinsle and Fire, the story of the Christmas number one.

Tinslin Fire, being from the lyrics to I believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake, I believed in Father Greg, Greg Lange, I swear Tinsland Fire. but my publisher has genuinely said that they thought calling it tinsle and fire would leave us open to some sort of health and safety risk and that's a real conversation that we actually had so I went for mistletoe and vinyl a pun on mistletoe and wine obviously

so it's an exploration of the mythology and the law of Christmas number one and why we are and for those you from there I know you have listeners who aren't British who will be like what Christmas number one is the strange phenomenon by which British gets weirdly obsessed with what single is going to be number one at Christmas.

It has a special place. You don't get a prize or anything, but it's got a special, for a long time, it had, it's less so now, but for a long time it had a special resonance. People would take bets on it. They would argue about it at school and in the pub. There would be like, it would be front page news. The race for the Christmas number one was a thing. So I wanted to explore, A, why Britain has such a weird, specific question.

relationship with Christmas music because there are Christmas songs that only we have here that they don't have anywhere else. Like they don't have shaking Stevens in America. Like they have Mariah Carey and gun crime, right? They don't have shaking Stevens. Name them more iconic duo.

Yeah. They don't have Cliff Richard. They have Elvis Presley, the poor man's Cliff Richard, right? But they, whereas where, and then no other country like has a Christmas number one. They have a number one. They have a chart and a lot of them have Christmas, none of them have united the two into a weird national sport.

And I just wanted to work out why. So that's what the book is. It's, so I go through the entire history of the British charts and specifically the British Christmas charts. And why certain songs floated to the top at certain time is why the rules are different at Christmas. Because there are so many ridiculous songs that are number one.

Sometimes it goes to the biggest pop band. Sometimes it goes to something completely unexpected, something completely out of left field. Sometimes it goes to something completely Christmassy. Sometimes it goes to something completely... utterly not christmassy um and the normal rules of the chart are completely suspended and i found that fascinating and then because like all of my stuff and because i'm a student of terry pratchett what i realized is there is a story under the story like the the story of christmas number ones is actually the story of how music has changed and how the we listen to music and consume music

has changed and the kind of music we listen to is changed and if you you kind of step back from that it's a story about how Britain has changed and if you look at the chart every single year in the same week for 50 years you learn a lot about Britain itself because it's a social history so I've written a social history of Britain through stupid Christmas songs

nice you've gone and done something important and then draped it in tinsel and disguised it that is what I've tried to do yet that's kind of what all my books have been like my show about Terry is that my show about Terry Pratch it's like on the surface is the story of Terry Pratchettcher, but actually it's about the enduring power of storytelling. And my book, The London Boys, about David Bowie and Mark Bowler in the 60s, is on the surface

about these two pop stars trying to get famous in the 60s. But actually, it's about following their lives to find out about 60s culture. There's always a story under the story, and there's always a social history. And I learned that from Terry Pratchett. You've been playing with the idea of writing this Christmas number one book for quite a while, haven't you? Oh, yeah. It's been in my back pocket for absolutely ages. When I started writing books, is the one i wanted to write i just wanted to like i was waiting for the time to be right really i wanted to find the right publisher for it uh because i wanted to go to come out on like as somebody who really did music books and specifically knew how to market them and that kind of thing uh

so yeah i've had this idea for a while but what uh what really drove it home and when i was like this is definitely a time is i was at the latitude festival last year in 2024 i was doing stand-up at the latitude festival i'm telling you that for two reasons one um because something interesting happens and two because I need people to know that I did stand up at the Latitude Festival and thus am kind of a big deal and they did and they turned the comedy tent

into a club night afterwards and it goes on all night and there were all these like 20 year old kids raving to a night called Club the Frommage that was just like cheesy music and there are raving to Abba and Wham and the Backstreet Boys and the Vanga boys and the Beastie Boys and the Beach Boys

and the Spice Girls and I guess the them I don't know they didn't play the 60s blues band them but they should have done anyway and they were playing all this cheesy music and halfway through the night the DJ drops because in July

drops shaking Stevens Merry Christmas everyone and the place just goes nuts like all these 20 year old kids are just like like snow is falling all around as children playing having fun it's the season of love and understanding and then he dips the fader and like 2,020 year olds go

Merry Christmas Christmas, everyone. And I was just like, how do they know this song? This song came out in 1985 and nobody else. Like, Shaking Stevens is not an act that has endured in any way. Like, he's not made an imprint on popular culture that has lasted, apart from that one song. He's not had a hit since then.

And I just thought that was really fascinating. And that sort of was what drove me to write it. And it's, yeah, I had a lot of fun. I found myself writing it, like, because I did Magic of Terry Pratchett in Australia at the beginning of the year. I found myself writing it in the Adelaide. laid sunshine, like writing about Wizard and Slade in cafes in the, in like the blistering midsummer of Australia, which was really, really bizarre. So it's been really fun to write.

Obviously, it's been in your back pocket for a long time. During that time, you've, I imagine, learnt a lot about all the surrounding stuff just from all the other stuff you've written and read and all of the surrounding research. I've been absorbing pop culture for most of my life, so. I mean, I've always paid attention to this. Like, I've always paid attention to this. I've always known, I've always known a lot about music. I always paid attention to Christmas music. Christmas music is the first music I remember loving.

Like, when I was, like, five years old, four years old in 1985, my parents had an, hang on, my parents had an album called, I've got it right here, the Christmas album, right? It is, it was the first British Christmas Christmas comp. We actually had it on tape. It was called the Christmas tape. But it was the first British pop Christmas Christmas.

compilation. And it had, it's got Slade and Wizard and Wham and Band-Aid and Outon John and, and we'll skip Gary Glare and John and Yoko and all of them. And it was like, and I just remember loving that tape when I'm like wanting to listen to it all the time even when it because Christmas is the most exciting thing that happens to you when you're little. And then this was the music of that. And it's the first, I think it's the beginning of my understanding that music makes you feel things and that music like music is a tap, pops. songs are attached to a thing. They're attached to a bigger feeling. And I think that's sort of the thing about me that fell in love with the romance of music of rock and roll, the romance of

pop, um, starts with, with, with those, those Christmas songs. So I've always known about these, this stuff. And I've, and then, yeah, I just mean, I've been a music journalist for 20 years. So like, I'm watching the British music. And I used to work in the music industry. I've worked for record labels and stuff. So watching the industry change and watching, watching, as we've gone from physical products to downloads to streaming and how that's changed the music industry. I've seen all that happen and that it completely is involved with the Christmas number one. Like that's that's that's entire, you can't separate those two things from each other. Um, so yeah, it's, it's all, it's all, we're all kind of swimming around

in the back of my head somewhere. Yeah. While it was swimming there, were there any kind of musical moments, any, any, any, any checkpoints in there that you were particularly anticipating where the good or bad writing about. Oh, yeah. I mean, the two I was most looking forward to write. Three, the three I was four. The ones I was most important to write about, right? 1973, because 1973 is the year Christmas number one starts.

No one cares about Christmas number one before 19703. And 1973 is Slade and Wizard. And the reason that it starts then is because 1973 is also the first year of a winter of discontent. It's a miserable economic year. And that misery, like, minor strike, grave diggers strike. The electricity is being turned off every night to save coal because they haven't stockpiled against the miners strike.

That's how Thatcher wins the minor strike in 84 because they learned the lessons of the 73 one that the miners unions would have the government over a barrel without because there was no power. Whereas in 84 they'd learn from that and they'd stop piled coal. So like it's a miserable time. It's a freezing cold winter. The electricity's turned off. People don't have coal for their fires. like there's talk of turning the telly off over Christmas apart from on Christmas day and then into that you drop these brilliant glittery bauble Christmas songs of

Roy Wood and Wizard and Slade and people just love them because they feel connected to something and they can't afford much but they can afford a seven-inch single and that's that's the treat you can afford and it brings a bit of Christmas sparkle of unproblematic uncomplicated not nostalgia just raucous celebrating Christmas in a party way you can bring it into your home buy a little disc and that so that's the that year was really interesting i really wanted to explore that 1984 is fascinating because 984 is band-aid obviously but it's also uh and also it's a economic under the economically awful year and people

buy the band-aid single i think partly to help people but also partly to feel part of a bigger movement a bigger part of a moment of society and that was really fascinating but that's also the year last christmas by wam frankie goes to hollywood's power of love um paul mcc Hartney's Frog Chorus. Queens, thank God it, Christmas. Like, it's a bumper year for Christmas music. There's three chapters dedicated to 1984 in the book because it just, there's so much to talk about.

And Band-Aid itself is so important culturally. And then the other ones that I think are really interesting, I knew I wanted to talk about Mr. Blobby, because that is so fucking weird. That is a hard one to explain to the non-British people, isn't it? Yeah, explain to a bit, like, that is the year that everyone thought Christmas number one, was going to be a big pink, meaty, spotty monster.

Oh, not me. Singing a song that no one really understood. But it wasn't him because Meatloaf only got to number three. And it was Mr. Blobby that got to number one. See what I did. You see what I did that. Mr. Blobby was a child, wasn't even a real children's character. It was a character invented for a Saturday tea time celebrity, like magazine show

called Noel's House Party, where the host, Noel Edmonds, who is an unlikable man with a beard, would dress up as a fake children's character in order to prank celebrities. And he called it Mr. Blobby. It's his big pink blobby suit. And then for some reason, people started to really respond to it.

And then it got so popular, it ends up releasing a single. And because at Christmas, children love... It's a terrible. And it's terrible. It's a terrible single. It's awful. It's like objectively awful.

It's objectively awful in every conceivable way. It's mental, but it's also awful. listen if you really must listen if you haven't it's up you it's it doesn't it defies all categorization but because children loved it it gets to number one so that's fascinating and then the other one that's really fascinating is 2009 which is when the year that the britain collectively takes a stand against manufactured pop and makes rage against machines killing in the name the biggest single of the year like 17 years after it was first released as this moment of because the simon cow on the x factor had dominated christmas number one for five years and And this was the moment when, as one, we all went, no, no father. That's enough of that. We drop the line here. No father. That's my only Patrick Stewart impression.

And they, they, uh, and, like, and rage against the machine becomes a protest vote that people download in order to stop X Factor getting a number one single. And that's just so completely fascinating. And that's the one for me that proves, that proves the sort of weirdness and the importance of Christmas number one to people. And the book starts with that. I start with the Radiance Machine X-Factor chart race

and then rewind to the birth of Christ. Yeah, of course. And actually, that's a good point. We do rewind a very long way. Actually, before the both. I go before the birth of Christ. I rewind it to the Romans. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As one does.

Could you tell us briefly about that actually, like they're diving into Christmas past? Yes. That is, The thing is, in order to tell the story of Christmas number one, you need to tell the story first of Christmas and music and why Christmas and music are so joined together. And to do that, you have to go, you have to look at why we have a party in the midwinter.

And every culture has a party in midwinter. And then the Catholic Church make one of the, like, one of the worst decisions they made, not the worst, but one of the worst. And they like import, import Christianity to, in order to import Christianity, they arbitrarily decide that Jesus's birthday will be celebrated in midwinter in order to attach it to the existing midwinter feasts. Hopefully that would make, that would sort of sanctify those feasts and make things more holy

and spiritual. What they actually do is they bolt Jesus's birthday to the biggest piss-up of the year. And there's all those celebrations, every culture on earth has this big, raucous celebration that has loads of music in it at midwinter. And then Christmas just becomes one of them. And I find that really, really interesting. So you kind of have to go to that. And then the history of Christmas in Britain is a history of riot and party and parties and mischief. And I think that kind of connects to Mr. Blobby. Mr. Blobby is nothing, if not the spirit of Ryan rebellion. I get that matches the Lord of the Lord of Miss rule that medieval courts would would have where they would replace the king with a common for one day

and call him the Lord of Miss Rule and he would just like do stuff for the lulls and the vibes and that's really and that's why the Puritans tried well there's a there's a link because Sophie Reese Jones who married Prince Edwards worked for the company

that did Mr. Blobby's PR which is why the press were asking the Queen what they thought of Mr. Blobby in 1993 but that's by the by so yeah that's there's this entire spirit of complete mad of rebellion and noise and ra in british christmas that is completely unique and and there's always been like the earliest british christmas song we know always a drinking song it's a was sailing

song it ends with the line drink hail hail to the drink um and that you can draw a direct line from that to slade singing are you hanging up your stockings on the wall like to the darkness saying don't let the bells end like it's all these aren't songs that are nostalgic or wistful or sad or religious especially like even that early christmas christian carol that i mentioned um it's all the religious bits for like they're just bolted on afterwards after they've talked about food and drink uh and it's so you've got that so i wanted to establish why music and christmas are so linked in british culture and then so that's the first bit and then it's where does the chart come from because you need a chart before you can have a christmas number one so i talk about the

how the development the chart and how christmas music was listened to and how music was a part of of Christmas in Britain in the 19th century in the first half of the 20th century before the first chart and that's chapter 1. So I cover about 2,000 years in chapter 1 and then chapter 2 covers like 30 years and then most of the other chapters cover like one or two. And in one case you've got one chapter. And then it really slows down for 1984 yeah because there's just that that was only meant to be one chapter. 1984 was most I was like half of it will be will be the other stuff and half of it with Band-Aid and then I was like writing it going I've nearly done 5,000 words and I've not got to Band-Aid yet. All right, Band-Aid can be its own chapter. And then it's like,

I've nearly got to 5,000 words. And I've only done how Band-Aid came about and how it was recorded. I've not done the fallout of Band-Aid and how it was, and why it was important. So I was like, that's going to have to be its own chapter as well. It's still very good chapters, to be fair. I know- I nerded out. I nerded out so much about this. I just love the fact you can trace British, that the health the British pop music through that through by just looking at the Christmas chart every year and you look at somewhere and you go that is a dog shit year there was nothing there like the Christmas number one is kind of out here on its own but you look at number two to 10 and you can you can see

the progression and like some years are terrible and some years are then you get to like 1990 91 92 or awful and then you get to 94 95 96 and they're amazing and you just used to oh pop was in rude health by then like the late 70s are rubbish the early 80s are incredible It's pop moves and cycles. Moving towards Christmas present then. What is, if you have one, your personal, I've heard this and now it's Christmas song. Like, I put this on December 1st and now it's there.

Well, okay, I have got, because I can't knock myself out of Christmassy mood by being overindulging. So I kind of micro-dose a little bit. So I've got staged playlists. So I don't hit... I've got them saved on my Spotify. Like Christmas stage one, which is only for the first two weeks of December, doesn't involve any of the big guns.

Like, it's nice to hear them out and about, and I'm not, I am not a Whamageddon participant. I will embrace, I will embrace, Wham, if I hear it in the wild. But I don't allow myself the big guns for the first two weeks of December. So there are out, but there are some Christmas albums I love. Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler from Ash did a really good one about 10 years ago that I really love. Nick Lowe, the great singer-songwriter, New Wave Singer songwriter, a great album called Quality. Street that I love. Sufyn Stevens, the American slightly

folky electronic artist, has done a hundred Christmas songs. Like, there are literally a hundred of them. Some of them are about him, yeah. And they get progressively weirder and as his music gets weirder. So there are things like that. There's a song by the Hives and Cindy Lauper that is one of

my favourite ever Christmas songs that nobody ever seems to remember. It really went under the radar and it's one of the best songs ever. It's incredible. incredible. It's, I think, I can't remember what it's called, I think it's called Christmas gift or something like that, but it's the hives and Cindy Lauper. I got no gifts this year and I slept with your sister. It's amazing. It's generally, it's properly amazing. And it's and then Cindy Lauper's voice just roars it. It's so good. So I've got all of those ones

are the thing that make me go, oh, it's Christmas now. I'm listening to, or low, low, there's the band low, I've got the most depressing Christmas album ever. away in a stock home it started to snow when you said it was like Christmas but you were wrong amazing lyric so so I let myself have those and that's when it starts to feel like Christmas that's when it starts to feel like Christmas is moving is moving in for me but there's always a point where I get to listen to and enjoy fairy tale of New York and that's that's always when I go I am and then the peak Christmas for me is watching the Muppets is watching Muppet Christmas Carol and that has to be saved for Christmas Eve because that like I am so completely in the moment

it. If I'm watching the Muppet Christmas Carol, like that's the year peaks at that point. So I have to work up to it. That's my Christmas morning watched, to be fair. What you're listening to is the sound of somebody who had a happy childhood, and I'm really sorry about that. Oh, no, it's totally. The older I get, the more people I meet who didn't have happy childhoods

and don't really like Christmas for that reason. And I always feel a bit guilty about it because I'm like, you know what, my family was really close and we really like Christmas. And the Christmas is always really magical. And it's like, you know, we, we was poor, but we was happy. We scraped together the cinders for a fire. I mean, more or less. Yeah.

I can do Mark's working class Christmas tales of woe, but I, but the point is, it was always really lovely. So, so, yeah, I get, I, so writing about it has been just really lovely for me as well because I just get to sit, I get to both. nerd out about music and sit in that feeling. Yeah. And there is nothing finer for me. There really isn't. Oh, that's nice.

Has your kind of taste in Christmas music evolved over the years, changed over the years, or has it stayed pretty I think, I did not, it's only ever been added to. It's stayed more or less as, I mean, I, I, those songs that

were on that, that classic 1995 Christmas album, are a sort of untouchable for me they're like a sacred canon and they're kind of a sacred canon for everybody because that's the album that establishes all these songs as the ones we listen to every year

like some of them were really obscure they had to pad it like it was obvious they had all these number ones they could choose from from the last 10 years like starting from Slade onwards so they've got Slade and they've got Wendade

and they've got WAM and all that sort of stuff but then they had to pad it out so they went looking for other stuff so you've got stuff like a Spaceman came traveling by Krista Berg which was a complete, like, obscurity until it was included on that album. And if you're British, you know that song very, very well.

If you're not British, I urge you to listen to our Space Man came travelling by Christoburg and have your mind blown by the weirdest Christmas song ever. Yeah, yeah, and bear in mind it is very much a Christmas song here. Yeah. But it includes the lyric, The Stranger spoke. He said, do not fear. I come from a planet a long way from here.

And I'm sorry, but that is an incredible Christmas lyric. Yeah. So I love all of that. So I still love all of those songs. Chris Rear driving home for Christmas, all those kind of songs that we get overplayed. But because they're overplayed, you don't really listen to them anymore.

And actually, they're worth listening to it because they're good. Like, Merry Christmas Everybody by Slade is an amazing song. It's such a great song. And so well-constructed. And it's so melodically interesting. And the lyrics are incredible. And so actually,

all that's happened is my musical taste has just broadened. It's just to include more. If somebody tells me it's a Christmas song, I will give it a go. I'm very fond of Kylie's new one. Oh, you are? Have you learnt the dance? Yes.

Hang on. X, M-A-S. Is it S? Yeah. S? She sort of does rub your tummy, pat your head. Yeah, yeah. I feel like she's going to grow on me.

I listened to it for the first time today because I saw the new story about the Christmas number one race and usually I'd kind of skim over that. I was like, do you know what? Locking in. I still, I mean, these words are going to come back to haunt me. I don't think it will be I don't think it I think the the

streaming algorithm is too strong and it will throw Whammer everybody on Spotify and you'd have to be like she's number one midweeks because you've got all of the pre-orders of physical sales but

but Wham is so ubiquitous on Spotify that it's that's going to push it for I think I might be wrong and I hope I am I genuinely hope I am because I would love a proper new pop Christmas number one. Yeah. Like, it's been a, it's been so long since we've had a genuine pop Christmas number one,

a good pop star, an actual pop star who's written a proper Christmas song. And it's not for charity and it's not a spoof and it's not a YouTuber or a TikTok or something. And it's just a proper pop star who's done a song that's actually about Christmas that actually gets to number one at Christmas. That hasn't happened since, well, Band-Aid, 20, Band-Aid 20 in 2004, I guess. Is it really? God. And then in terms of, I mean, it depends

if you count the Ladd-Baby Elton John's Ed Shearing single, which I don't. And then it depends if you count stay another day by E-17 as a Christmas song or not, which it kind of is and kind of isn't. But if you don't count that, you've got to go back to Cliff Richard in 1990 for the last proper Christmas song about Christmas. That was Christmas number one

and was by a solo pop star that is a depressing statistic yeah come on kiley yeah so um and kiley and cliff kindred spirits yeah in so many ways but the average reading speed while reading this book has been hobbled because as you say like you don't listen to these songs properly over the years and i've had to pause and listen to so many songs that i thought i knew properly some of them uh you're welcome and some of them i am so sorry. I think most of them, you're well,

some of them I have a, I'll be honest, I have not re-listened to Blobby. No, and I mean, watch the video, just, just skim through it

because it is so completely about shit. Yeah, yeah. It's worth watching just, just for that because it isn't so, it is so weird. And the fact that it exists

is so strange. But yeah, most of them, utterly, utterly terrible. A lot of those songs. You know, no one needs to go

and listen to Bob the Builder. You certainly don't need to listen to Westley. life's um west life's cover of abba abba's i had a dream yeah that was weird yeah that was weird i remember that i mean it's not weird it's just it's just rubbish it's just it's a it's a sappy slushy boy band doing a sappy slushy song i love abba but i don't i i i genuinely don't like i have a dream very much no fair enough uh i think it's i think it's substandard abba and um and and that's a double a side with seasons in the sun which is a brilliant song which is a brilliant

although it's hauntingly sad and Westlife just smack all of the, all of the emotion out of it. Anyway, don't listen to those, is what I'm saying. No, no, yeah. Blobby and... Blobby, come slightly recommended, obviously. We enslaved. Did you get any sort of new appreciation

for songs you'd kind of written off in the past as you were working on this? Do you know what, yes. And the one that surprised me the most, and I say in the book that it's the most controversial opinion in the book, is Millennium Prabb, I can, Cliff Richard is a really good song. It's a really good record. Clifford, I mean, Americans don't even know Cliff Richard is. Cliff Richard was the British

Elvis. He was introduced as the British Elvis in 1956, I think, and he, opening his career with a brilliant single called Move It. And then he's endured in the public consciousness ever since. In the mid-60s, he discovered Jesus, and he's been basically a Jesus guy since then. He's incredibly religious. And he had a couple of Christmas number ones in the late 80s and the early 90s. And in the end of 1999, he released a cover of the Lord's Prayer, sang to the theme of Old Lanzine, as his attempt to get Christmas number one for a third time. And it is, it sounds like an incredibly naff idea. And it is, it is, it is an incredible, it is sort of a excruciate idea.

But if you listen to it on headphones, it's kind of, it's quite a stirring record. Like, he sounds like he means it and that comes across. and it does have this big build and swell to it that is like it is I mean I don't want to go and look back to listen to it very often but it's actually quite a nice achievement and what I like about it is that he starts off as you know the British Elvis that's what he was known as and Millennium Press sounds like a seven a mid-70s Elvis record it sounds like what like a gospel Elvis song you Elvis could have done that record and I quite like that it's a full circle moment for him I also feel a bit sorry for Cliff because that didn't get to number one

was beaten by West, well, it got to number one, it didn't get to Christmas number one, Westlife knocked it off. And if it had been Christmas number one, it meant that he would have equaled the Beatles record for the most Christmas number ones. And had it stayed at number one for one for one week afterwards, which it probably would have done because the Christmas number one tends to be the first number one of the next year. He would have had a number one record in the 50s, 70s, 80s, 80s, 90s and 2000s. And he didn't get it. And I feel a bit bad for him for that. So that's the one I actually got some appreciation for. And that's the most controversial opinion I have. No one believes me. But genuinely, it's a really staring record.

Like, he meant it, man. And that's nice. That's not quite nice about listening to somebody mean it. That was one I had absolutely no urge to revisit while reading the book. But now hearing you talk about it, I am almost curious. I did grow up in a very anti-cliff Richard household, to be fair, which I think is like a tainted it for me. Is that like a cap like? Yeah. Well, I grew up in it. No. I don't know. My dad decided somehow as a Geordie, that meant he, hated Cliff Richard and he just went along with it. Is this because he's from the south? Is that basically all it was?

I think it was annoying posh boy. Right. I mean, I come from a Cliff agnostic house. Like, we simply had no opinion on Cliff in our house. I think my parents thought he was a little bit like nap and embarrassing because he is. And that's basically that and my parents were young people. And that is pretty much like where it began and ended. But yeah.

So it's only later, like you kind of. Actually, Cliff's career is quite interesting. Like, he was a matinee idol. There's a brilliant film he made called Espresso Bongo, which is about the kind of cafe, the coffee culture of mid-50s rock and roll in London. It's genuinely a really good film. It's a musical, but there's a version of it that's not a musical

where they've edited out the songs. It's better. Watch that one. And it's really good. Cliff's really good in it. And it's actually a really good film about sort of the, the culture of 50s pop music. Yeah, he's actually quite an interesting artist

and the fact that he's had this incredible longevity. And he did have number ones in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. And every time you write him off, he comes back. And more religious than ever before. Yeah, I tell you about finding God in the 60s keeps you alive through the rock and roll era, isn't it? Apparently it does. I mean, he's been very healthy. There was a hearty attempt to get him cancelled a few years ago.

but he saw for um he got caught up in the uh in the post jimmy savel stuff uh but but sailed through those waters and apparently it was all clean as a whistle and it was all okay so um you know whew massive backfire on the people yeah yeah although um it did take him off the radar for a long time but anyway i don't wish to talk any more about cliff rich no sorry i don't want to paint myself as an actual cliff fan i was about saying are we wrapping up she would have to book him so we won't talk anymore but speaking of cliff rich no um but speaking of songs that didn't get the number one are there any other ones that you've have a very strong like they were robbed feeling about oh yeah well i mean the one that was properly robbed was fairy tale of new york which only got to number two

but there is a caveat to this because no it got beaten by the pet shop boys covering always on my mind uh the Elvis song and and for pretty obvious reasons we're in the middle of their imperial phase. They had a, and they were covering an Elvis song, so it had really broad appeal. And then the Pogues were on a really small label, and that's kind of a song that kind of came out of nowhere.

And they weren't a major artist, but they, that song kind of, you know, they didn't have the distribution and they didn't have the marketing. Gaineson number two was impressive enough. But that's the one that's endured.

That's the one that comes back. And I genuinely think it's not just one of the best songs, best Christmas songs. I think it's one of the best songs of all time. That said, you can't talk about Fairytown, New York, and not have the caveat that it has a homophobic slur

in the middle. Yeah. And it's, it's a homophobic slur that is sang in character. The person is saying it in character. It's not maliciously meant. It's like, it's a period piece. It's essentially dialogue. But it's totally valid to feel uncomfortable if you hear it. And Shane McGowan, who's a singer in the Poges and Kirstie McColl, who also sang on that song, both said, it's fine if that makes you feel uncomfortable. We get it. Like, we're not going to, we're not going to fight the corner of that. It's a totally legitimate thing to feel. And they both change that word sometimes when they sang it. So given that, you have to mention that, but given that the only thing that's problematic, the only thing that's wrong and that's otherwise completely perfect masterpiece of a song is that it has a homophobic slur in it, the fact that it was beaten to Christmas number one by one of the gayest bands of all time is quite satisfying. Oh yeah, that's true. So I'll take, you know, that.

Yeah. The other one that was really rubbed as the darkness, Christmas time, Don't Like the Bell's End in 2003, beaten to number one by Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fear's Mad World, which I still to this day can't explain because it did not have like everyone the darkness had everything on their side everyone thought the darkness was going to do it but there was a proper Christmas song

and it was like it's going to be a rock and roll Christmas song and number one it's going to be brilliant a British band with a rock and roll Christmas song doing a Christmas number one and actually what happens is this is an incredibly bleak cover of an already quite bleak song and people just like oh no it's Christmas let's wallow in misery

which we do we do like to wallow misery at Christmas for a lot of miserable Christmas Christmas number one And that year was a miserable, apparently a miserable Christmas year. So I always think that one was robbed. I was just saying to Joe earlier. That's the one I listened to when I need to get like festive quick. In the festive.

Yeah. The darkness. I'm not in the mood. Outside the darkness, yeah. That would be really perverse in otherwise, yeah. Like, the one thing is quite surprising is that darkness song. Because every year now, because of the way the Spotify algorithm works, the UK chart is if you look at the chart in Christmas week,

it'll be three quarters old christmas songs like all of the new songs are pushed out of the chart almost all of them and there will be like songs that are 40 50 60 70 years old charting and like Andy williams and bin crosbie are that will be there and so will like you know everyone from slade to more recent stuff like leona lewis uh but um the darkness the last few years hasn't been in the top 40 so i think that songs kind of ran its course a little bit it's not sort of in the cultural conversation in the way that I thought it would have lasted in, which I feel that about. They've tried again this year. They've got a new, they've covered cliffs.

To go back to Cliff, they've covered Cliff's mills, mistletoe and wine. It's fine. It's fine. It's a bit, I think, a little bit too surprisingly close to the original. I'd like them, I'd like them through have done a bit more with it. I really like Justin Hawkins. I want him to succeed. So I feel like there's a way to nudge the, don't let the fell then back in.

Yeah. I think that would have been there. And the fact they called it Don't Let the Bells End is just, well, magnificent. Yeah. That's the, that's the added bit of ridiculous preciousness in it. You wouldn't, you wouldn't get that in the US. Do you really?

They just don't do knob jokes in the same way in the US. They really don't do knob jokes. Although, thinking about it, there is Kendrick Lamar's A Minor gag that he literally did at the Super Bowl. So occasionally you get one that we'll go for it. So yeah, so, yeah. So jumping into Christmas future, you're talking about the way streaming's changed the charts and you did a really great analysis of how like you reality TV and then downloads and then streaming what this all did to the music industry and especially the Christmas number one. Do you have any feelings about what the future of the Christmas number one might be?

Do you think it is gone for good or do you think there's a comeback? So I thought until today that it was a zombie now and that it would take a hell of a disruptor to kind of come in and have. Because the thing about, I mean, we talk a lot about stories as Terry Pratchett fans, and because like the core, the core moral of Terry's books are the power of stories. The Christmas number one battles are interesting and the ones that have a story attached to them. The ones that mean something, the ones that endure and we remember are the ones where X Factor versus versus Raiders machine. Yeah, there's a story there. I think something to actually care about.

People want this to happen. Take that versus Mr. Blobby. People had a dog in the fight. you know people actually cared about and they they they voted like it wasn't just buying it was the record they chose was they chose was they chose was a vote they placed it was almost like that it was it was approached on that level and that I don't think has happened because now um now the music industry the charts but is based on streaming it means you don't have the people don't have the same investment in the music that they're playing in terms of getting it to a chart place

like if you if you go back to the to the era of downloads or physical singles in order to purchase a song you had to hand over some money and in return whether digitally or physically you were given a thing and that doesn't really happen anymore and there's not so there's a lot less investment you're not emotionally invested in the in that song in the same way in getting it in its chart place and that means you care you don't care about the chart place you just like the song and you'll play the song and you're and you're invoional you're invocial emotional investment is entirely in the music itself it's not in the performance of the music in the outside world whereas um if you go back 15 years you would have an investment a financial stake in a in a piece of music and then thus would be interested in what it was doing and that's gone because of the way we consume sing i mean albums people there has been a physical media revival and people do buy albums they do buy vinyl um cds are making a revival even um but not as singles singles are still like you still tend to listen to downloads and if you're younger that's your only way of listening to songs a lot of the time and a lot of time you don't even choose what you're going to listen

to you you put on a playlist and Spotify chooses for you and that as that completely mean that means that the the songs that record companies are pressuring their artists into are tailored to the Spotify algorithm and that brings a certain kind of uniformity and it means that there's you're less slightly to get like curveballs and odd balls and disruptors and that's what you need to make Christmas the more interesting you need people to come out out of nowhere and go what the hell where did this come from no one saw this coming things like some winiford school choir in 1980 with it which is a children's choir singing a song about their grandma and get Terry wogan the DJ plays it on his radio show because he likes it and it's charming and it sells 75,000 copies by

lunchtime and just like it completely messes with the music with the music industry model it's completely it's a disruptor the rage against machine thing was a disruptor um even lad baby who had the christmas number one for five years in a row with dreadful charity records about sausage rolls that had no musical value whatsoever and no one actually listened to more than once um people bought them because they were for charity and that was it but even that that comes out of nowhere it's the model isn't attached to the normal music industry model um i'd like to see another disruptor come out of nowhere and do it properly. But it, I feel like if Kylie does it this year, then it's happened and I'm really excited. I'm really glad, although it will mean that all the things I've been

saying on stage and in radio interviews for the last month are wrong. But what a nice thing to be wrong about? Yeah, but I will be, so I, but I will be, I will be, I will be bitter, but I'll also be really delighted about it because it will prove it can still be done. And that'll be nice. And that will have another Christmas song to add to our collection that actually does get listened to every year and can join that that canon of music and that that gets you know if you if you look at the 70s through to the mid 90s we add a song to that canon every couple of years and then after the mid 90s hardly any and um it would be nice to get another one really trying to mentally stretch the metaphor and work out with the dead sea scrolls of the christmas uh um in sense in what

in the sense of near mythological missing yeah and possibly only treated as canon by one sect of the yeah what are the controversial holy text yeah i mean some some people would consider would consider would consider staying of the day by 17 to not be a canon christmas song and some people will consider uh the spice girls christmas number ones to not be canon christmas songs and uh you know your tolerance may vary on what you consider uh And then it gets tedious, and then we get into the diehard arguments, which I refuse to have.

So, like, but it comes, it gets a bit like that. But it's a Christmas, it's a Christmas song if you think it's a Christmas song, as far as I'm concerned. Because think, because, because, because culture change, the, the context of culture changes as we, as, as culture itself changes. So things can be recontextualized. And the story around them can change. The narrative around them changes. And that, and something that, and something that, what. a Christmas song can become a Christmas song and that's absolutely true in the same way that KFC is a Christmas food in Japan that's that's exactly the same so it's

exactly the same as another thing it becomes recontext there's nothing innately Christmassy about KFC but they may but it became a Japanese tradition to eat KFC on Christmas Day thus if you were Japanese KFC is Christmasy like the context can change yeah I like that um quick listener question favorite book slash books that you've read this year uh queen macdonald's uh ring the bells uh i thought is i i've genuinely genuinely loved that uh i've done a lot of my i've got to plug my my partner melanie's um book about marian and i i i hand on heart it's it's so good and i uh she's a historian it's a it's about she she writes and i read it going this is fun this is interesting oh la la la la this is frothy

and then it gets the bit where the french revolution starts and and I couldn't put it down. And I read the second half of the book in a single day. And I never do that. Like, I literally couldn't put it down. It's really, really good. I'm trying to think what else I've read that's new and really enjoyed, but I've gone predictably blank.

That's fair. That's allowed. But there you go. I've given you two. Yeah. That's pretty good, yeah. We can both second the Quay recommendation, and I'm only a chapter or so into Melanie's book,

but so far I'm really enjoying it, so I'm seconding that one too. And you can't stop me. Excellent. Good. Nor would I. It would get me into trouble. It's a bizarre thing to do at this stage. I'm currently enjoying a fairly obscure book that is genuinely brilliant.

And I don't even know, it's called Going Postal. Oh, that's what I'm currently reading. Yeah, it's pretty good. That's by that Terry Pratchett fellow. One of those genre fiction writers, isn't it? I mean, it's fantasy. It's not for everybody. It's not for everybody.

It's fantasy. see it's about it's about the post office and that seems a bit that i mean that's what i'm reading the minute so yeah uh but a post office but on a space turtle it's because apparently i am a walking cliche and i still don't get bored of rereading discord dreadful isn't it yeah i really thought i would after the last five years and that nope six years now we missed the anniversary again i have a specific reason for reading it but i'll wait but that'll that'll be well i'll tell you about in a minute but you can't tell our listeners about that what can you tell our listeners about what you're doing

next please plug things oh this is why i'm going to tell you why i'm really really going postal good because i'm so impatient i was just waiting so uh things coming up uh so i'm doing a tour of my show the brip pop uh when's when's this episode coming out when i edit it so in the next few days yeah uh well if you haven't if you listen this to this before december the 18th uh which is probably unlikely, bear in mind, it's December the 15th. But I'm playing in Camden on, I'm doing the last launch event for the Christmas book in Camden at the Dublin Castle where I put a band together

and we're doing an hour of Christmas bangers. And I'm playing bass. And three quarters of my old band The Men, they're not playing for nothing, have reformed in order to do a gig. And I'll also do some stuff on stage and we've got special guests and it's going to be brilliant. And I'm really enjoying learning all of these old Christmas songs. and, you know, I get to play Wizard and Slade and stuff, and it's really fun.

And so that's the next thing I'm doing. And I start the tour of my show, The Brit Pop Hour, which is what I did at the Fren at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, which is a stand-up comedy show, about 90s indie music. And that is on tour around the country, starting in March. And I'm basically going everywhere as long as you don't live in an extreme part of the country. Or Wales. I don't know why I'm not going to Wales. It's not my fault, all right?

I don't go, I go where I'm told. Like, my agent books are my turn up. We try and go everywhere. If I'm not going to somewhere near you, it's because no one near there was interested in booking me or no one near there had an available venue at the right time for the right price. It's like, so do not write letters complaining that I hate your part of the country

unless you're Welsh, in which case, fair enough. Yeah. I do. I do thought, send in your complaints to us and we'll pass. I genuinely, the thing is, I genuinely love Wales. I'm like, I've never met a Welsh person I don't like. I'm a Manic Street preachers, obsessive. I've had some incredible gigs in Wales.

I don't know why I don't sell very well in Wales. Anyway, so I'm doing my rip-pop show. Why don't they laugh me back? I know. I've got to, I practically fetishise the Welsh, and maybe that's the reason. But I am, although one of my best friends, Vicks, Lex Laiton, a brilliant comedian is Welsh. but anyway, I'm, so I'm on tour...

Yes, some of my best friends are Welsh. Like, I don't learn the language, obviously. They're not integrated, but I'm... Anyway, I... So I'm on tour doing my show about Prit Pop. It is very good, it got great reviews at the fringe, apart from one bad one. But, like, it got nine, four and five-star reviews,

no three-star reviews and one two-star review. I can't tell you what any of the four-and-five-star reviews said, I can quote the two-star review verb, him but you know that's that's yeah that's just that's just how it goes um but uh yeah please come and see that and it's basically i think i'm doing 20 tour dates i'm up in as far north as glasgow and edinburgh as far south as um devon and bristol and uh we've not got a london show yet but we will have there'll be any of scared part of the world yeah we're trying to find it we're trying to find a cool venue that feels britt poppy but anyway so that's the next thing

and i'm really proud of that show and uh and i can't wait to get back into it and start thinking about that. Um, I do have two books coming out this year, next year. Um, the first one will be out in the summer and its title is a Terry Pratchez, Terry Pratchettcher's, Terry Pratchett Reader's Guide, Volume 1, 1962 to 1999. Uh, that'll be followed by a Terry Pratchett Reader's Guide volume two, uh, 2000 to 2016. Um, which is, so basically people kept asking me to write another book about Terry and I kept going, I, I've literally wrote his life story. Like, yeah, There is not, there is, like, there is not a sequel to that book. I don't want to be the one that breaks it to you, but the story very much stops.

Like, it comes to an abrupt end and, and, um, but actually, the more I started thinking about it, the more I was like, actually, there's so, because one thing I get, the feedback I got for the show I did and for the book, people always go, it was great, but why didn't you mention insert favorite book here more? And the book, like, the book literally does mention every single thing Terry ever wrote, but not, but some of them only in passing. And I was like, maybe I can do a deep dive book where I go into actual depth. So it's basically an essay on everything Terry ever wrote.

So every chapter is a book. Like the first chapter is his early short stories. The second chapter is his newspaper. It is his journalism short stories. The third chapter is his journalism, nonfiction. And then it goes into the novels. And then it's every single novel in turn. Originally, it was going to be one book.

And then I realized that that's absurd because he wrote a lot of books. And it's picking out the themes and how his voice evolves and how each book sits in his biography. And there's some nerdy reference spotting as well because you've got to have some of that of just going, this joke. This is a reference to this. This joke is about this. But mostly it's more kind of here you can, this is our first hint of this kind of grand thesis of the power of belief and stories coming out and how his voice evolves and how he grows as a writer and the stuff you can, the stuff that emerges as it goes along. and so it's it's it is for the pratchit um this is not a book for the pratchett curious like my um the stand-up show is for the pratchett curious you can come to that show having never read a terry

pratchett having never heard of terry pratchett and get it and enjoy it um this is a book for for people who love those books and i think some of the opinions i have will be disagreed with violently but i also think that people will i mean i'm basically doing what you did as a podcast as a book, which meant I had to not go back and listen to your podcasts. I thought about maybe I should go back and, because when I was doing each book, I was like, maybe I should go back and listen to the Tuchin and make you fret and the other podcast and see what they are, they're saying. And then I thought, no, I don't want to contaminate it.

I don't, we can listen to the other. Yeah, we can listen to the other people's thought. I don't want to feel like I'm, I was sort, I'd end up ripping off your ideas and stuff. And so I wanted it to be purely what I think of it. And so I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, the first, The first volume is done. It's with the publishers. It's currently being edited.

The second volume I'm partway through. Very excited. It's highly likely. We're probably going to have you back on the podcast next year. That'd be nice. Yeah. So, yeah. That's pretty, you can't get much more in the wheelhouse.

Yeah, then we can talk about all 60 Terry Pratchett novels. So that'll be fun. But it has been really interesting because there's stuff like, like, you know, I wrote 5,000 words on like on, on, on on fifth elephant the book ends with fifth with fifth elephant and but then also it's like you know I'm writing

about the unadulterated cat like there's a chapter on the unadulterated cat there's a chapter on science of disc world as a really like all these things that these little forgotten corners like looking at Terry's journal like nonfiction journalism and what how does and I going through all of the

articles he wrote and some of this stuff is stuff that is not widely available like I write about some of the short stories he wrote that have never been republished. There are still about 20 short story, fictional short stories for newspapers. And I don't know the reasoning behind that. I think why some were chose,

like some have been chosen, because obviously, you all know this, but Terry wrote about 150 short stories for children in the 60s and 70s. And most of them have been republished in collections and including a bunch that were discovered last year. And we know about that, blah, blah, blah.

But there are still a hand. handful that haven't been done. And some of them, interestingly, some of them are, they're not as kind of fun romps. They're not as silly as some of the others. There's some, a little bit more fairy tale and a little bit more kind of, they feel like Alan Garner or something like, or Susan Cooper or something. You can, they're a bit more kind of kind of kind of sort of sort of children's fantasy without money, as many jokes. As opposed to those kind of zany, roll dolly kind of ones that are the ones that kind of like, you know, the witch's vacuum cleaner and stuff. So there are some really interesting, like the family that lived in the dust bin is one. And there's like there's some really, there's some ones that I don't know why they've not been re put, but not before. So I've covered a lot of that. And then loads of his nonfiction, like he's like the stuff that was in the tales from round world book that I gave up that I sold at my shows. And more than that, like his review, his book reviews. He wrote book reviews every week for the Bath Evening Chronicle in the 70s.

So you can really get a lot of what he believes in and what he listens to and what he likes and what. and what he cares about from the book reviews and the silly columns and stuff and you can see the voice evolving. So there's a lot of stuff like that and then I link, and then occasionally I'll go, I'll be talking about another book later on, I'll link it back to that stuff. So it's all about kind of finding the sort of meta links between the metatextual links, which sounds very imponsie, but it's also got all my usual stuff of footnotes and attempts to troll Rob Wilkins and the important stuff. It's a new addition to the,

so that's, yeah, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's what I've been working on. That's, so those, that's, that's, that's, those books will be hopefully done. Well, I've, I'm hopefully will have finished the other one by the time I go on tour. So the idea is that the first volume comes out for the summer and I'll be doing a launch event for it at the, um, at the discord convention, which will be, if, if anyone is going to the UK Diswell Convention in Hinkley, Leicestershire, breaking a cardinal rule that I've had for ages, which is I will never go back to Hinkley, because I'm from Hinkley. So I'm saying, wouldn't earth is Hinkley, that right?

It's because I spent 20, I spent 22 years there, and I don't ever want to, and I try not to visit, but I'm going back to Zoll. And then hopefully the second volume will be out for Christmas, and I'm trying to think of fun ways of doing special editions and I might do a slipcase where you buy, you buy a slipcase that can have both volumes in, which will be nice. Like that. That would be cool. And things like that. And I'm going to do some, like, I'm going to do a bonus book for it.

You know, like my other books, I've done bonus. Like, if you buy a special edition, you get a bonus, like, fanzine thing. And what I thought I'd do is, like, I've still not covered everything. I've only covered the books and the short stories. And I was like, so the bonus fanzine will have the, we'll have the from the Discworld album and the video games. Letters to be keepers monthly. to be keepers monthly and you know

just that's all so I'm gonna they'll be special they'll be special this and stuff and I'll try and find more cool extra value added items

which I like which I just like doing yeah I like finding reasons to charge people more money oh yeah yeah I can sense

the nerding out for that too yeah I can sense certain listeners of ours is pricking up at this year it is it is basically

like you do want it's the same reason that the prejudice state does glorious special editions of stuff is because you want to have because there are people who will pay more to have something really nice and and frankly everyone's a winner if you do that as long as you make it worth but worth them than buy it then then you get to have a little bit more profit and they get to have something lovely and so um that's something i try i always try and do that's all very excited but brick pop first I've got to remember how that show goes because I've not thought I've not thought about it

I last did it in mid-September and I've not thought about it since and I've really like I was thinking about the other day I was like I genuinely don't remember any of that show now it's just gone out of my head there's a bit where I teach people that dance like Jarvis Cocker there's a bit where I play a union jack guitar and then talk about and then talk about nationalism because it's me

It ends with a song and dance routine And yeah, I've got to try and find out how it all goes But we'll see So it's going to be a busy year And hopefully one in watch I can avoid having to get a proper job again Yay And dear listeners, we'll link to all of the relevant things down below And where you can find stuff and buy tickets and pre-order and do all the things

Yeah It's all on my website, Markborrows.com. Absolutely. That's where we'll link to. Right. um shit sorry can you hear that

I've got the weird roof noises again I'll be back in a back in a back what's that like I don't know it's a glingly noise is that my headphones I don't know

it might be the violent pigeons go look at the input does she have violent pigeons she does have violent pigeons it's kind of endemic to Suffolk um got the normal pigeons

the violent pigeons um explains a lot about Joanna's temperament It does, yeah. Raised by Violent Pige. Oh, I heard that one. Yeah, no, I don't think it is just a head friend.

Hello. Not seen a mark. Hogfather. I've never seen the Hogfather before. Hello. Hogfather. Oh, wow. Oh, happy hog spot.

You look different this year. I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I always look like this. Okay. Finner. Where's your honour? Have I missed her again? She's just gone to investigate a noise. I think she's gone to tap on pigeons again, Hogfather. Sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm starting to take this quite personally. Right, we won't let that small things. Mark, have you been a good boy this year? No, emphatically not. I've tried to be. I have tried to be a good boy, Hogfather. I really have. Well, that's close enough. What would you like for Hot Watch Mark? I would like Pops different class reissue on 12 inch. and a pony? Satsuma it is, excellent.

I'll take it. Unfortunately, Francine I do tell you. The gift of vitamin C. Again, no scurvy for Christmas this year. Vitamin C for all. Now, sadly, this is a flying visit as I said, Francine. The pigs do get both reckless and restless. So I'm afraid I won't be able to stay for Joanna.

Well, the pigeons have quietened down. Oh, Jesus. I think, yeah. I should probably go and deal with that. But at Merry Hogg's Watch and blessings to all and to all a good something. Bye. I'm so pleased he doubled back. He was sad to have left you the first time.

I don't know what the fuck was going on with those pigeons. No, did they quieten down now? They seem to have calmed. Sorry, you can edit that chunk. Yeah, no, I'll just cut the whole thing, yeah. excellent amazing right did I miss something no nothing nothing no no nothing no no nothing happened Mark being rude about the Welsh again yeah we were discussing we're discussing pigeons the Welsh you know all the big issues yeah of course and indeed the big

issue yeah which is in itself quite a big issue right well I think that's been a hogswatch extravaganza as best as we can make it. In case we haven't mentioned it enough, dear listeners, do check out Mr. Mistletown Vinyl by Marvelous Mark of Rosent. I can't have a non-lary coffee. Okay. Can I just inject it with a bit of a self, like a self pat on the back. The number one bestseller missile and vinyl, thank you.

Number one bestseller, missile, tur and vinyl. If I can be one of this, right, glitter around it in the edit. Put note, Amazon music chart, two days. But, you know, it counts. It counts. it was number one. It was number one. It was number one on the other music chart. No, it's number two now. It'll be back. I hope so. Dear listeners, remember, you can always go and buy the e-book right before Christmas

and help us get Mark's book to Christmas number one. Oh my God, please do that. Yes, like buy it, buy it, but you have to do it on Christmas Day. Buy it on Christmas Day. Because then if it can be number one on Christmas Day, I will have a book about Christmas number ones that is in itself a Christmas number one. And that would be incredible. And it's only 99P on Kindle. So like, that's cutting my own throat or Jeff Beedles is anyway. And if anyone's story, it's going to get anyway, before I get sued.

Check out Queen's book, Ring the Bells as well. Which is brilliant. Which is excellent. Quick self-promo, but also please check out American teen dramas from Sunnydale to Riverdale. And the next book will have a shorter name, I promise. Also, quick shout out to a couple of other friends of the pod. congrats PD PD Dolling on your new

novel, Closure May Never Come and we're going to link to me to get that down below I keep meaning to order it and I keep forgetting to PD I'm going to bought by your book I owe you that it will happen I promise and also shout out lovely Ellen Mella and her all the books of earth

queer fantasy slash speculative fiction anthology that I'm very much looking forward to reading and I'll link to work to get that will be down below as well right I think that's all the Hogswatch extravaganzing done is it I'm extravaganza down yeah excellent um quick shout is this is probably our last episode of the year unless we get really bored between Christmas and New Year's we are going on our pretty inspired Joanna I think we put it

yep inspired between Christmas and New Year's we're going on a little hiatus and coming back in the spring because we both feel an overwhelming need to hibernate what we're coming back with I can't tell you exactly I can't tell you over the next year, there'll be more Pratchett revisits, classics revisits, new book reviews, possibly even a trip to a Mervyn Peake written weird castle. If I can help us. God help us. I am, I am Gorman aghast. Aha, very good. Until we return in the spring, of course, we'll be available in all the usual places. You can join our Discord. There's a link down below. Follow us on Instagram

at the True Show Make You Frette on on Facebook at the True Show Make You Frette. Join us. Reddit R-S-T-S-M-Y-F, email us your thoughts, queries, castle, snacks, and embossed-form crackers, the true-sham-make-you-frette-pod at gmail.com. And if you want to support us financially, go to patreon.com, porches, that's the true show-make-you-fret, and we exchange our hard-earned pennies for all sorts of bonus nonsense. And until next year, dear listeners,

Mark, would you do the honours? Don't let us detain you. oh that was a really good one yeah he's got a good for it i'm reading going postal at the moment right i've got i've got him in my hand