Engels was an enthusiastic celebrator of Christmas in his later years when he lived in Regents Park Rd, North London. However when he was still a Manchester businessman he found the official celebrating rather too much
ENGELS TO JENNY MARX IN LONDON Manchester, 3 January 1868 Dear Mrs Marx, I must apologise for leaving your letter unanswered for so long. But the Christmas period is the only time in the whole year when, apart from business, I am made to feel that I stand with one foot in the bourgeoisie, and here in Manchester this entails a lot of eating and drinking and upset stomach, and the obligatory ill humour and waste of time. This is now fairly well over, and I am beginning to breathe freely again.
You may or may not have missed it but one of Trump’s senior functionaries Marco Rubio has officially banned the use of the Calibri font on the grounds that it is ‘woke’. It is meant to make things easier to read for those who have vision issues. Rubio has reinstated Times New Roman.
Times New Roman was invented in 1932 by Stanley Morison and used by the Times until fairly recent times as it were. The Financial Times (13th December) says Morison was a lifelong ‘marxist and pacifist’, although I suspect only the second of those is correct.
When I was younger (so much younger than today etc) I used comic sans serif a lot, partly because I liked it and partly because it seemed to annoy the font police. Nowadays I’m happy using Times New Roman although of course what you’re reading (or not) here is in Aptos, Word’s font of choice.
‘Beardy’ Howse has a piece in the Telegraph (14th December) arguing that your choice of font suggests what kind of person you are but then declines to indicate what font beard wearers like himself use.
As for Rubio it might be tempting to say he has better things to do, but actually obsessing about fonts keeps him away for a bit from those ‘better things’..
A week of issues in Ambridge. Paul, Lily and Josh ended up with norovirus which given their youth seemed to linger somewhat and that was just on the BBC’s reports from Ambridge. It was long enough for Josh to grasp that his girlfriend is not friendly anymore and to get in a mention of the Real Madrid v Man City Champions League game. And long enough for Lily to decide that she is not going to be written out and will go to Australia for a month not a year. And a visit from Shula is promised/threatened
Meanwhile at the surgery there were heating and sickness issues and Laurence the racist was despatched to hospital after a cardiac arrest after he had a racist outburst. We hope his mental health improves.
Meanwhile again Akram has been pondering relocating to Pakistan perhaps feeling that potentially Reform friendly Ambridge is no longer a tolerant place if it ever was.
Counter to this was an offer from Alan the Vicar to sort out Friday prayers at the Village Hall as the local-ish mosque needs building work..
The upshot is they are staying in Ambridge. Good news for once
In Other News
The Times is concerned about owners of Chelsea Tractors driving around the narrow roads of Ambridge.
Christmas sandwiches. The market and the curry innovation.
I’m not talking artisan here but the ones you find in supermarkets, even if some do pretend towards the artisanal.
The usual range of recent times can be found pretty much everywhere. That turkey, stuffing, cranberry, pigs in or under blankets, salmon and cream cheese.
However capitalism thrives (when it does) on innovation and marketing what comes out of that. Sometimes the marketing is more impressive than the item being sold.
All that said I’ve noticed a new mini-trend(and this is not exhaustive, I don’t trail every supermarket) towards a spicy Christmas. Whether or not curry is the UK’s favourite food, both Waitrose and Tesco have a curry related Christmas sandwich this year. Waitrose have a Curry Feast Sandwich while Tesco are selling a Christmas Curry Bratwurst. I’ve tried both and they probably worth having again.
Of course neither is suitable for vegetarians or vegans and I can’t say I’ve spotted anything innovative in the Christmas sandwich market this year. That may be a market judgement of who buys a sandwich at this time and what kind of sandwich, or I may have missed it. Examples welcome
The above chart is from a study about references to Opposition parties in the BBC and ITN ‘Tens’ the later night news bulletins. It’s a piece of funded academic research, important in itself, but also as it should raising many further questions.
One might be how many people now watch the Tens and what is their age and class profile. Another might be that there are many other news sources and in particular social media.
However the research certainly reflects how much coverage Reform gets and part of that might be because its policies chime with the Editorial positions taken by the Tens. That is not specific Reform policies (if they have any) but the subjects they focus on.
On Saturday 13th December Stephen Yaxley Lennon called what he termed a ‘carol concert’ in Whitehall to somehow reclaim Christmas. Badged under his Unite the Kingdom mantra it was an exercise in promoting the kind of far right Christian nationalism that is a key part of the MAGA movement in the US.
Yaxley Lennon is reported to have converted to Christianity during his most recent spell in prison. The turn-out of several thousand was hugely down on the numbers that turned out at his last rally in September. It may well be that on the second Saturday before Christmas many of his fan club preferred to worship at one of the 800 or so outlets that Sir Tim has around the country instead.
As ever there was a well attended Stand Up Racism counter rally at which Billy Bragg sang the above song. I’m not religious but a reminder at Christmas that Jesus was a refugee makes an appropriate seasonal point.
Yaxley Lennon is not going away even though Saturday was not his best moment. The Together against racism on March 28th 2026 in London remains an important date.
On Thursday 11th December Reform launched a Christian Fellowship (Labour, LibDems & Tories have one) at St Michaels Church, Cornhill in the City of London. Reform MP Sarah Pochin, Anne Widdecombe and Tim Montgomerie were among the Reform operatives in attendance.
St Michael’s is one of a group of churches who style themselves as ‘conservative’ and do not agree with the ordination of women.
The setting could not have been more appropriate, as St Michaels is referenced (by description) in Charles Dickens Christmas Carol and Scrooge’s Counting House was situated immediately opposite in Newman’s Ct.
The sermon claimed Jesus was a victim of cancel culture
The Reform party has launched a Christian Fellowship with a carol service at St Michael’s Church Cornhill, in the city of London, a church which is a member of the Prayer Book Society. Sarah Pochin MP, Tim Montgomerie and Ann Widdecombe were among members who read lessons. Tim Montgomerie, who co-founded the Conservative Christian Fellowship, is said to be about to become the honorary president of the Reform Christian Fellowship. In the sermon, the Rev Henry Eatock-Taylor wove cancel culture into the nativity story, painting a picture of a “cancelled” Christmas, a “decaffeinated, coffee-flavoured, oat milk version of the nativity”, with fewer male speaking roles, the gift of gold regarded as colonial inequality, myrrh ethically sourced, and the stable as an eco-dome. But he said the Christmas story showed that the God of the Bible could not be more different. To the members of the new Christian Fellowship, he said: “These weeks should be a time of great celebration for us. The arrival of one who got cancelled for mixing with certain people. One who came that God and sinners may be reconciled. One who came not to cancel humanity, but to be cancelled in our place.”
Nigel Farage does not appear to have been present. No doubt, familiar with the area as he is, he was in a nearby hostelry, likely the newly reopened Simpsons in Ball Ct..
Telegraph’s Top 100 Christmas songs cancels the Flying Pickets Only You
Xmas No.1s have varied a bit over the decades to include some that are still remembered and played now and some that are, er, not.
The Flying Pickets version of Yazoo’s Only You was at No.1 for the whole of December 1983. Marc Burrows social history of Christmas No.1s (2025) describes the group as ‘ageing and unpretty’ which is certainly unfair on the sadly late Brian Hibbard.
The Telegraph has republished its 2022 list of the top 100 Christmas songs. John Lennon ad Yoko Ono’s Happy Christmas War is Over, which is described as ‘bittersweet’ does make it to No.81 but the Flying Pickets do not appear. Presumably the name in itself is too much for the Telegraph.
The group were actors who had come from the radical theatre group 7:84 (7% of the population own 84% of the wealth). The lead singer Brian Hibbard (the one with the sideburns) went on to a series of popular acting roles in Coronation Street and the like but sadly died in 2012. They had been active in the 1972 and 1974 miners strikes and the 1984 strike was just three months off.
The Flying Pickets were regulars on the London New Variety circuit, a weekly evening of radical music, theatre and comedy staged by CAST (the Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre, sometimes known as the Campaign Against Shakespearian Theatre) which was the brainchild of Roland and Clare Muldoon who went on to run the re-opened Hackney Empire.
A reminder of the radical 1980s, the political world which amongst other things helped to form the current and immediate past Labour leaders, although that is barely acknowledged by the current incumbent.
In 2025 the song is featuring in a Christmas TV advert..
contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett: @keithbeard.bsky.social
Jeremy Corbyn regains Parliamentary Beard of the Year title for the first time since 2022
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it faced an unprecedented challenge in drawing up its annual shortlist for the Parliamentary Beard of the Year. It is thought there are currently 106 hirsute MPs, a modern record.
The Beard Off Final where 1,200 voted saw Independent MP Jeremy Corbyn shave his colleague Shockat Adam for the coveted title. Corbyn took 58.8% of the vote
It is the first time Corbyn has won the title since 2022 and his eleventh victory overall. He has previously won in 2001,2007,2011, 2012 (shared) 2014,2015, 2016 2018 2021 2022.
The 2024 winner, Ulster Unionist Robin Swann, was knocked out in the preliminary rounds
Several thousand votes were cast across the two preliminary rounds
Votes were cast across social media platforms, Blue Sky, Facebook and Twitter
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, Jeremy Corbyn has won the Parliamentary Beard of the Year vote more often than any other MP. His eleventh victory underlines that he is one of the most well-known beard wearers in public life. Who said he couldn’t win elections?
The Beard Off Final contenders
Chris Webb (Labour)
Jeremy Corbyn (Independent)
Andy McDonald (Labour)
Shockat Adam (Independent)
Notes for Editors
The General Election on July 4th 2024 saw the departure of a large number of existing MPs- mostly clean shaven Tories- and the arrival of an equally large number of Labour and LibDem MPs. Based on a liberal view of facial hair it is thought that that there are currently 106 MPs in the House of Commons with beards
The shortlist was NOT about the politics of the MPs on the list. It was about whether their activities during the year provided a positive image of the hirsute. Obviously this can be disputed- how positive or otherwise- so the shortlist always goes to an on-line vote.
Reform UK claims to be the UK’s largest political party with 268,000 people who have paid at least £25 to become a supporter of Nigel Farage’s political business. The ability to challenge the leadership (50% vote of all supporters required) is limited and the ability to bring business to a democratic conference does not exist. Farage decides all that.
There is no question though, as the photomontage John Heartfield portrayed Hitler that millions are behind Reform. Farage is not Hitler of course, for a start he was a vegetarian which Farage certainly is not.
The millions In this case are the £9 million Thai based businessman Christopher Harborne has recently given Reform. One sense he has a super vote on matters.
The graphic here situates Trump in Heartfield’s original montage
