Posted on Monday, December 18th, 2006 at 11:13 pm by Philip Devitt
The Dickens classic always been one of my favourite stories; its got 3 ghosts, 2 deaths and a little cripple boy, what more could the reader want ? As it happens some kind folks at Project Gutenberg have been good enough to key in the entire book for you to download, but as it is Christmas I’ve provided a link to my own version that you can browse online. For those who like to turn the pages of a real book I’ve provided links to Amazon where you can purchase a paper copy.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens.
Posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 10:26 pm by Philip Devitt
It’s that time of year again; a fortnight before Christmas and I can already sense the ghosts of yuletides past creeping up on me and bringing back memories of yesteryears seasonal sins. The only redeeming feature of this “holiday season” is that I have somehow managed to avoid taking any vacation time off work and have a stupidly large number of days to spend. I don’t know why I bother, I never know what to do, but at least I can do it without having to wake up an some Godawful hour of the morning. Its the mornings that get to me; 9:00 o’clock and it’s still dark, dank and miserable. The evenings aren’t much better, or lighter.
How come the term “Holiday Season” has started to creep into the language? I can recall there being winter, summer, autumn and spring but have no recollection of “holiday”. I believe its because some poxy conservative white protestant bureucrat is afraid to remind people who have migrated to this country that this once great nation is primarily made up of white anglosaxon Christians. Whilst most of these Christians are not wholly devout the majority do like to be reminded of the story (and I repeat STORY) of Jesus.
Christmas is a celebration of a time when some poor unfortunate Jewish girl was knocked up in time for Chanukah and was so afraid to tell her dad of adolesent springtime fumblings behind the goatshed that she figured it’d be easier to say an angel had “visited” her. The only real difference between now and then is that most petrified impregnated teenagers these days haven’t got the nerve to blag it; let’s face it, your benefits are bound to be affected if you put down “God” as the father.
Enough misery for now.