Christmas song #3

The evening television news has snippets of the World Cup draw taking place in the Kennedy Center. We are treated to a hitherto unknown peace prize being awarded . The Canadian PM and Mexican Presidents are on their best behaviour and smile for the cameras. A group of 'B' list celebrities make carefully scripted and highly anodyne comments designed for a local audience more used to the rules of baseball or the NFL. For the event, Tom Brady, an American football player chosen for his ability to pick balls out of a bowl, wears a black suit, black shirt and black tie. I guess this takes the meaning of black tie to a whole new level .

There's no doubting the Scottish teams unexpected and much celebrated entry into the football World Cup is good news for local travel agents and kilt shops. Flights are already filling up. Fans planning to travel to see the team in the US (  they're tentatively pitted against Brazil and  Morocco in Foxborough and Atlanta  ) seem keen on the lace up shirt, colourful tartan sash and  medieval bunnet look. This may or may not, depending on the wearers physique and level of sobriety, combine practicality and style. What America will make of the arrival of the Tartan Army will be one of the more interesting cultural developments that await us in the year ahead. The linguistic differences with the Glasgow fans are borderline unbridgeable. Canada with their indigenous Scots demographic will certainly be well better prepared and Mexico may not even notice as the Scots may be on their way home by that ( early ) stage of the tournament. I look forward to spurious press articles about the people of New Jersey taking the visiting Scots to their hearts. GLWT!

The ladies outfitters on the shopping street has a new - festive drinks party - window display. There seem to be two hem lengths.

A company that arranges bouncy castles for childrens parties is extremely busy. Schools finish here for the Christmas break on the 22nd so school party season is about to kick in big time.

I'm reading this slim little volume for a second time. It's one of those 'read and digest every word ' type of novels and is ideal for the fifty minute train ride into Edinburgh. It outlines a historic and violent dispute between two 19th century  Lutheran pastors in Konigsberg. This might sound dull but in those days theological disputes were passionate and aggressive affairs. A similar dispute at the same time  led to the Zuriputsch riots in Switzerland - an event that led to the popularising in English of the word putsch.

Tucked away on an inside page there's a reference to 'the sin against the Holy Spirit'. This is apparently unforgivable and even more worryingly there is no indication what the sin consists of. In 19th century Prussia the worry of this caused widespread outbreaks of deep depression and sexual excess - particularly amongst wealthy young women with time on their hands. Angus can't help but feel that such a vague  sin sounds deeply unfair. You can't even use the ' I'm sorry officer I didn't know it was a 30 mph zone ' excuse. I'd never heard of it. Have you ?

Very Heavy Metal and very Swedish . Christmas song #3 :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuauC6mkw1k&list=RDUuauC6mkw1k&start_radio=1

We are getting our Christmas chocolates from here this year :https://audreyschocolates.co.uk/