Anglotopia

The Fiver – Five British Things to Look Forward to in 2021

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:56:36 GMT

2020 is a year that seemed to take forever to end. The COVID pandemic resulted in lockdowns that shut out most of the ways we would pass the time, including travel. Fortunately, the new year brings with it new hope, as the rollout of vaccines may perhaps get us back to life and opportunities that were denied to us in the preceding months. Britain certainly offers a number of things to look forward to this year from culture to games that we couldn’t experience under COVID. There’s no telling yet how the lingering effects of the pandemic will affect the following events, but at least they give us something to expect.

Coventry City of Culture

The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport designates one UK city per year as a City of Culture. This designation not only highlights the art and culture of that area with festivals and events, but grants it a greater opportunity to host such arts awards as the Turner Prize, Brit Awards, Man Booker Prize, Stirling Prize, and more. Hosted by a city every four years, Coventry’s year as City of Culture will begin in May 2021 due to the pandemic and will be sure to be a much-needed boost to its economy.

Monopoly

This live-action version of the board game that normally leaves you and your mates hating each other gets a live-action series of challenges in 2021. Hasbro and Gamepath have teamed together to turn “Park Lane” and “Mayfair” into an immersive gameplay experience at a presently undisclosed location in the West End. Timed to last roughly 75 minutes (as opposed to the hours that the came can normally take), teams will need to race across the “board” to complete challenges and buy up properties. Due to launch in Autumn, exact dates seem to be up to the end of the pandemic, at which points tickets should go on sale.

Rugby League World Cup

The 2021 Rugby League World Cup (separate from the Rugby Union World Cup in New Zealand) will mark the first time that the men’s, women’s, and wheelchair competitions will be brought together in one location and at one time instead of being spread out. This year’s final is set to take place in Manchester at Old Trafford in November. Other venues for the competition matches include London’s Emirates Stadium, Liverpool’s Anfield, St. James Park in Newcastle, and both Headingley Stadium and Elland Road in Leeds, amongst others.

Theater and Cinemas

One thing that many people are looking forward to regardless of whether they’re traveling to the UK is the return of live theater and new movies. With the tier system expected to expire in March 2021, the West End and cinemas throughout the UK are preparing to reopen with plenty of shows and new movies to great audiences. Blockbuster films set to come to cinemas in 2021 include The King’s Man, James Bond’s No Time to Die, Peter Rabbit 2, and Death on the Nile.

UEFA Euro 2020

Yes, you read that right. Much like the Summer Olympics that were due to take place this past summer, the Euro Cup football competition had to move its matches from June and July 2020 to June and July 2021 due to the Coronavirus. The cup will see twenty-four teams from UEFA member countries play in twelve cities throughout Europe to find out who represents the continent in the world’s great sport. For countries like Scotland, this is especially momentous as it will be that nation’s first appearance in 25 years. What’s more, Gareth Southgate’s 2018 England squad that made it to the fourth place in the World Cup will be back to improve on their success.

The Brit History Fiver – Five of the Royal Navy’s Most Famous Ships

Mon, 18 Jan 2021 17:27:51 GMT

The Royal Navy is one of the world’s oldest military forces, one that was formed in 1546 when King Henry VIII committed a standing Navy with its own warships, dock, and secretariat. While ships had been enlisted in prior military actions, this was the first time England had a purpose-built fleet to protect its shores and interests around the world. In the centuries since, many ships have had the honor of sailing for the country and have earned renown for their feats and prominence. We have highlighted five of them for you below (which you can still visit today) and if you think there’s one we left out, you can let us know in the comments.

Mary Rose

Source: Depositphotos

The Mary Rose was one of the most famous ships to sail for England. The Tudor warship was launched in 1511, just over three decades prior to the formation of the Royal Navy. The Mary Rose was lost at the Battle of Solent in 1545, but rediscovered in 1971 and brought back from the ocean’s depths in 1982. The museum that contains her opened in 2013 and has plenty of artefacts as well as exhibits from the ship and about sailing during the Tudor period, for which the wreck served as a time capsule.

HMS Victory

Source: Depositphotos

HMS Victory is the oldest commissioned ship still in service and played a critical role in Admiral Nelson’s success at the Battle of Trafalgar. It launched in 1765 and remained in active combat service until 1807. The Victory served as a prison ship for a time and was nearly broken up during the Victorian period before public outcry saved her. Restoration in the 20^th Century helped turn her into a museum for the Royal Navy, the Battle of Trafalgar, and Lord Nelson and the Victory can currently be visited as part of the Royal Navy’s museum in Portsmouth.

HMS Warrior

Source: Depositphotos

HMS Warrior was constructed in 1859 and launched in 1861, the first of a new type of combination sailing and steam-powered warship. The Warrior was built as a direct response to France’s first iron-hulled ship, the Emperor Napoleon and she spent most of her service in the Channel Fleet. She was only in service for twenty-two years before more powerful steam engines made her obsolete. The Warrior continued to see other uses until 1979 when she was restored to become part of the museum fleet at Portsmouth.

HMS Belfast

Source: Depositphotos

HMS Belfast was launched in 1938 and commissioned into service just before World War II began in 1939. A Town-class light cruiser, she participated in a number of engagements during the war including serving as the headquarters of Bombardment Force E during D-Day. The Belfast even saw service in the Pacific Theater once the war in Europe ended. Today, she is under the care of the Imperial War Museum and can be found moored on the Thames in London as a museum ship. The Belfast gives visitors a chance to experience life on a World War II light cruiser while also providing a rooftop bar with a great view of the Tower Bridge and other city landmarks.

Royal Yacht Britannia

Source: Depositphotos

The last in the great line of Royal Yachts, HMY Britannia did serve as a member of the Royal Navy and the crew were volunteers from the RN general service who were appointed for up to 2 years as “Yachtsmen”. The Britannia was in service to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II from 1953 until 1997 when it was moored in Edinburgh as a museum ship. More than just a ship for the Royal Family, it could be converted to a hospital ship in times of need and even served to help rescue 1,000 people from Arden during the South Yemen Civil War.

AC/DC release an unusual music video for "Realize”

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 16:34:31 GMT

Hello, Good Evening, and Remain Indoors! As predicted, AC/DC’s new album Power Up is everything we’ve expected from all their new albums from For Those About to Rock on. And the fact that it’s hit #1 on both sides of the pond (and also Australia, where the band is technically from, even if Phil Rudd has been the only Aussie in the band since 1977) certainly helps matters. And even swapping out Malcolm Young for his nephew Stevie hasn’t really changed anything.

So, it’s really interesting to see them adapt to new circumstances. Case in point, the new video for their single “Realize.” Can you sense anything unusual about this? Well, besides the fact that the camera keeps moving and often latches onto strange angles?

Well, here comes the twist: the five members of the band filmed their parts for the video were filmed separately, for reasons that are almost certainly pandemic-related. While the NME article I used for information doesn’t explain how exactly they were able to do this, I think I can figure it out.

Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark is defined by two cinematic modes (courtesy of the late, great Robby Muller): the “real” scenes that make up the plot, shot on handheld cameras that help cement the reality of what’s going on, even if some of the plot points might not seem so, and the musical scenes, like the one I linked above, which, to keep costs and shooting times down, were shot with hundreds of stationary cameras, so that they could all be done in one go (or as many times as it took to get it right), and von Trier could find the shots and angles he wanted.

While I’m not entirely up on how camera technology has changed, I know enough to know that it looks like things have improved to the point where directors Clemens Habicht and John Cheuse could easily put Angus Young, Stevie Young, Phil Rudd, Brian Johnson, and Cliff Williams in a space where they could do something similar, but on a smaller scale, and, to increase the difficulty, they edited all the members together to look like they were playing together, even though, for all we know, they could have been filmed on different continents. And for the most part, I think they succeeded. I’m not sure if it would have worked out as well if the style wasn’t as unchained as it was. At the most, it looks like something is off, but if you didn’t know, I’m not sure you could tell.

Brit Telly: Ten British Television Shows Coming Out in 2021

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 19:03:47 GMT

If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent a good part of the pandemic binge-watching TV shows at home. With the abundance of streaming services available now, there hasn’t been any shortage of content for that activity, but you might be concerned that you’re running out or wondering what will happen next in your favorite British programs. Well, fear not, loyal readers, because we at Anglotopia are here to pick up your spirits with ten shows coming in 2021 that we think you should watch. We’ve got a nice combination of new shows and returning favorites for you, but the problem is, there are so many shows that we could only pick ten. If there’s something you think we left off that people should watch, let us know in the comments.

Doctor Who, Series 13

The end of 2021’s New Year’s special saw Graham and Ryan leave, but as is always the case with Doctor Who, a new companion is waiting in the wings. This season, new addition Dan (played by Scouser comedian John Bishop) will head off on adventures with the Doctor and Yas. The series was reduced to eight episodes due to the pandemic affecting filming and with rumors that this may be Jodie Whittaker’s last season, who knows what enemies the Doctor may face or if we’ll see a regeneration at the end.

Around the World in 80 Days

The latest adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic novel comes to us in 2021 and features David Tennant as Phileas Fogg alongside Leonie Benesch and Ibrahim Koma. It’s one of many series whose release was delayed as a result of the Coronavirus stopping filming but was able to resume in October and should be hitting our screens sometime this year.

Staged, Series 2

And speaking of David Tennant, one of the earliest series kicking off this year is a sleeper hit of the pandemic. Tennant and Good Omens co-star Michael Sheen teamed up for Series 1 that saw them playing fictional versions of themselves stuck at home after COVID shut down their West End play. Still trying to rehearse in the midst of their partners and families, they were also joined by several big-named guest stars. It’s possibly the most 2020 series of all, filmed almost entirely using Zoom. Series 2 will see their director, Simon Evans, attempt to do an American version without either David or Michael (as well as David and Michael’s reactions to it).

Englistan

Incredibly talented rapper and actor Riz Ahmed flexes his screenwriting skills with this nine-part drama series that features the lives of a British Pakistani family over four decades. The new series uses the same name as his original mixtape and will be “unlike any period drama you have ever seen before.” According to the Ahmed the show will explore themes of “identity, hope, belonging…family and looking for love” through its own unique and diverse lens.

A Very English Scandal, Series 2

Whereas Series 1 focused on MP Jeremy Thorpe’s alleged plot to kill his gay lover, Norman Josiffe, Series 2 leaves this story behind for yet another scandal. So popular was the first series produced by Russell T. Davies that the BBC decided to turn it into an anthology. In 2020, the BBC commissioned Sarah Phelps to write a second series that will focus on Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyle, and her very high-profile divorce that revealed a string of lovers.

Ginger Snaps

Twenty years after the original film debuted, this new series adapts its comedy-horror tale for the small screen. Film producers Copperheart Entertainment are working with Killing Eve production company Sid Gentle Films on the show wherein one of a pair of sisters is attacked by a werewolf, forcing her sister to find a way to kill or destroy the beast her sibling is becoming.

Back to Life, Series 2

Serving another year of its sentence, Back to Life returns to television sets and streaming sometime in 2021. Starring and co-created by Daisy Haggard, along with Laura Solon, Haggard plays Miri Matteson who has returned to her hometown to rebuild her life after an 18-year prison sentence. With Miri’s crime and a deeper secret related to it revealed in Series 1, we can’t wait to see how these revelations are explored further in Series 2.

Inside Man

With a slew of hit series under his belt including Coupling, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Dracula, Stephen Moffat brings his latest drama to the BBC with Inside Man. The series features two characters, a man on death row in the United States and a woman trapped n the cellar of an English vicarage, who end up crossing paths through very surprising means.

Britannia, Series 3

A fantasy/historical drama set in the era of Roman Britain, Britannia takes a look at the conflicts between the Roman, the Celts, and the Druids. The show, on the whole, is like British history had a child with Game of Thrones, infusing actual events with swords-and-sorcery storytelling. Coronavirus shut down filming of the third series in 2020, but it started back up towards the end of the year and is set to hit Epix and Sky in 2021.

Derry Girls, Series 3

Based on creator Lisa McGee’s experiences growing up in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, the end of Series 2 saw English-born James elect to stay in Derry with the girls as well as the beginnings of the peace process that would lead to the Good Friday Agreement. With a great combination of newer and experienced Irish comedy, it will be interesting to see what parts of Northern Irish history the show hits upon as the girls (and James) find new dilemmas at their Catholic school.

Brit Film: Ten British Movies Coming in 2021 (Hopefully)

Tue, 12 Jan 2021 15:56:31 GMT

Remember the days when we could get a ticket, grab a bucket of popcorn and a soda, and set down to watch a movie? Unfortunately, 2020 saw a halting of the moviegoing experience as COVID crept across the land and numerous films that were due out last year are ready to come back to theaters with new release dates. They join a slew of films that were already scheduled for release in 2021, offering plenty of options for moviegoers, including a number of British films. If you’re having trouble deciding what to see in the coming year, here are our ten selections for you to consider. It’s still not clear whether many of these films will actually get a cinema release or just end on digital on-demand services. We shall see.

Operation Mincemeat

While the final release date has yet to be announced, this WWII drama was one of the casualties of 2020. Starring Colin Firth as Captain Ewan Montagu, who along with Charles Chomondoley, staged an elaborate deception with a corpse and briefcase that caused the Nazis to divert forces away from the Allies’ planned invasion of Sicily.

Late 2021.

Promising Young Woman

Originally meant to be released in April 2020, it was pushed back to December for in-person theaters and then again to January 2021 for video on demand. It’s a very dark comedy featuring Carey Mulligan as Cassie Thomas, out for revenge after a close friend was sexually assaulted. It’s set to be available for rent on January 15 through Amazon Prime, Vudu, iTunes, and more.

This week!

Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway

James Corden is back as the voice of everyone’s favorite misbehaving English rabbit. Following the events of the first movie, Peter decides he can have more fun outside the garden and runs away, causing his family to leave in search of him. The movie is set for release in the UK on February 12 and in the States on April 2.

The King’s Man

A prequel to the Kingsman series of films based on comics by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons, and directed by Matthew Vaughn, 2021’s The King’s Man sees the formation of the independent espionage organization. It was originally meant to be released in 2019 but now has a date of March 12.

Last Night in Soho

From comedy to horror, director Edgar Wright brings to 2021 the story of a modern girl who finds herself back in 1960s London. There she encounters her idol, a wannabe singer, but quickly begins to realize this place is not what it seems. The film is set to be released on April 23.

Death on the Nile

The follow up to 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile is another adaptation of Agatha Christie’s work that features Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot. Naturally, when a passenger on the S.S. Karnak is found murdered, Poirot is drawn in to discover who the murderer is. As with the last movie, this one features an all-star cast as the suspects including Annette Benning, Russell Brand, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Letitia Wright, and Rose Leslie. It’s set for release on September 17.

Cruella

Another prequel, this time to the book and film 101 Dalmatians, Cruella features Emma Stone as the titular villain and will seek to explore Cruella De Vil’s past on the streets of 1970s London and why she comes to hate dalmatians so much. Originally meant for release around Christmas 2020, the pandemic caused filming to be pushed back, and now it will be released on May 28.

The Beatles: Get Back

Far from the land of Middle Earth, director Peter Jackson brings this us this documentary about the making of The Beatles’ album Let It Be. Jackson’s picture takes previously-filmed materials for the album to show the good feelings that existed between the band at time when it’s generally believed that they were falling out. The film is due to be released on August 27.

No Time to Die

The latest entry into the long-running James Bond franchise, No Time to Die sees Daniel Craig’s James Bond come out of retirement at the request of CIA Agent Felix Lighter (Geoffrey Wright) to deal with a new threat posed by Safin (Rami Malek). Another victim of multiple delays due to the pandemic, James Bond will return on April 2.

The Fiver – Five of the Best Moments from The Grand Tour’s "A Massive Hunt”

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 17:11:01 GMT

Since late-2019, The Grand Tour has altered its format from episodic seasons into a series of specials, something that began with 2019’s “Seamen”. For the most recent special released in December 2020, the trio opted for a pirate-themed adventure called “A Massive Hunt”. The basic idea is that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May would go in search of the lost treasure of French pirate Olivier “La Buse (The Buzzard)” Lavasseur, who was captured in Madagascar and hanged on the island of Réunion in 1730. Legend goes that he threw a cryptogram detailing where his buried treasure was into the crowd. Armed with this bit of knowledge, three cars of their choosing, and sheer nerve, Clarkson, Hammond, and May sought to succeed where other treasure hunters had failed for centuries. As you might imagine, they didn’t find it, but here are some of our favorite moments from their attempt.

Réunion Island

The special kicked off on Réunion Island, which geographically and politically is a very interesting place. Instead of simply being a French dependency or protectorate, the island is legally part of the French Republic. France’s organization is broken up into “Metropolitan France”, or what we think of as continental France including Corisca and islands off the coast, and “overseas departments and regions” such as Réunion. As such, the island’s distance away from Metropolitan France makes it the outermost region of the European Union and the longest non-stop domestic flight from Paris to St. Denis at a total of 5,809 miles. For a bit of perspective, the second-longest domestic flight is Boston to Honolulu at 4,983 miles.

Scenery Porn

And speaking of Réunion, one of the best parts of this special as with any of the specials are the copious amounts of beautiful scenery. Besides the French island on which the special begins, we’re also treated to lovely views of Madagascar and its Nosy Baraha island, which is alternatively known as Ile Sainte-Marie or “Pirate Island”. Throughout the special we see colorful small towns, lush jungle, and picturesque beaches—which are promptly dug up or blown up by the hosts as they search each locale for the missing treasure. If you love Top Gear and Grand Tour specials for copious amounts of scenery porn they provide, you certainly won’t be disappointed here.

Jame’s Kill Switch

When picking their cars, James went with a model that totally fits his personality—the Caterham 7 310R. As with most Caterham models like this that are intended for amateur racing, it has a “kill switch” on the outside of the vehicle. A “kill switch” is another term used to describe the exterior ignition key which, if removed, will shut off the engine in the advent of a crash and prevent an engine fire. While it only happens twice during the special, both Jeremy and Richard delight in removing the switch from James’s car while he’s sitting in it, taking the piss out of him in the process since James had to get out of the car to get it back. Pinky and Perky’s practical joke highlighted just one of the Caterham’s problems when it came to this challenge.

Jeremy Picks the Best Car (for Once)

In these Top Gear/Grand Tour specials, Jeremy Clarkson isn’t known for always picking the best vehicle for the job. His tendency all-too-often is to go way too large, picking something with a lot of horsepower, size, or flare rather than the most practical option. At first, his selection of a Bentley Continental GT V8 seemed par for the course, because who would take a luxury sports car to an island that will require a great deal of cross-country travel along uneven and underdeveloped dirt roads? However, like most challenges, the hosts were required to modify their cars and this was where Clarkson’s yobbishness turned to brilliance. Unlike James who made almost no modifications aside from his tires and Richard whose tank treads proved so unreliable he had to switch back to tires, Clarkson’s changes were downright inspired. Jeremy modified his Bentley with a wench and engine snorkels as well as major changes to the tires, struts, brakes, and shocks that actually proved useful. It also won the drag race on Réunion’s unfinished ring road (cue the smug face).

First Car Failure

It’s hard to mention the car that did the best without also mentioning the car that performed the worst. So poorly, in fact, that it marked the first time a car was unable to complete a challenge in the history of either show. Whereas Jeremy had the Bentley and James had the Caterham, Richard Hammond opted for a Ford Focus RS. First, as mentioned previously, Richard modified his car with tank treads that were so utterly useless that they had to be removed halfway through the challenge so that he could continue on Madagascar’s mountain dirt roads. Then, as the trio progress through the rough roads at night, Richard’s Focus strikes an uneven part the ground and his clutch broke. Being an absolutely integral part of a manual transmission, the broken clutch rendered the car undrivable. It’s a hard scene to watch as the utter disappointment is clear on Hammond’s face. Richard then had to continue the rest of the journey on foot (or at least, on-screen he did).

Great British Icons: Tate & Lyle Sugar

Fri, 08 Jan 2021 15:58:26 GMT

At one point the world’s largest sugar refiners, Tate & Lyle was formed in 1921 by the merger of two family businesses. One was founded by Henry Tate, who began as a grocer in 1839, and the other by Abram Lyle, who created Golden Syrup, an iconic British product still sold today in British grocery stores, in a tin with the original 1885 design. These businesses both ended as major sugar refiners, with rival factories just 1.5 miles apart on the River Thames in East London. After the government price restrictions introduced during WWI were lifted, they merged, seizing 50% of the national sugar market. Building on that strength, they became ‘too big to nationalize’ when the post-WWII Labour government turned numerous other businesses into state enterprises. The invention, with Tate & Lyle funding, of sucralose in 1976 began a movement into food supplements and highly processed sugar and starch-based products for manufactured foods. This trend culminated in 2010, when they divested themselves of all their sugar processing activities, to American Sugar Refining Inc.

Key Facts

Formed in 1921 by the merger of two sugar refiners
Henry Tate and Abram Lyle both began as small sugar operations.
Invented sucralose artificial sweetener
Diversified into starch-based products
Sold all sugar-related businesses in 2010

The Reverend William Tate was a non-conformist Protestant minister married to Agnes Booth. Their son, Henry Tate, born in 1819, started life modestly enough, spending his childhood in the small market town of Chorley, Lancashire. He was apprenticed to a grocer in Liverpool at the age of 13, and at 20, his apprenticeship over, he set out with his own shop. By 1854, only 35 years old, he already had a chain of six successful stores.

In his business, Tate was well aware of the value of sugar. Although humans have always had a sweet-tooth, it was the large-scale cultivation of sugar in South America and the Caribbean islands using slave labor that had fuelled an increase in annual consumption from just four pounds a year in 1700 to 36 pounds by 1850. For comparison, today, it is over 100 pounds per head. From being used primarily to sweeten tea, coffee and cocoa, new products were developed to use sugar, such as jams and candies, as well as sweet pickles, chutneys, and of course biscuits and cakes. The Caribbean colonies of the West Indies grew most of the sugar cane – about 90% of European consumption was produced there.

After slavery was abolished, the growing was mostly done by indentured workers brought over from India, to work for up to ten years in conditions of near-slavery. The sugar was shipped to the UK as muscovados, a soft, brown raw sugar, which was made in simple factories where the cane was grown. A system of tariffs prevented the production of refined sugar in the colonies; instead, it was done in England, and the resulting white sugar sold as a sugarloaf. This tall conical form came in weights between 3 and 30lbs – 14lbs was a common weight – and in fact, a sugarloaf was often the sign used to indicate a grocer’s shop, so important was sugar to that trade. Special pliers, called sugar nips, were used to break off pieces of sugar.

In 1859 Tate joined in a partnership with a certain John Wright, who already had a sugar-refining plant in Manesty Lane, Liverpool. They parted ways in 1869, and Tate was joined by his two sons, Alfred and Edwin, to form Henry Tate & Sons. They opened a new refinery in Love Lane, Liverpool in 1872. In 1875 Tate acquired the exclusive rights to manufacture an innovation in sugar – the sugar cube. This had been invented in Germany by Carl Eugen Langen, while working in his family’s sugar factory, J. J. Langen & Söhne. Langen went on to be an important innovator in the development of the petrol engine.

Tate opened a factory to make his sugar cubes in Silvertown, an area of Plaistow, East London, in 1877, which remains open today. Soon his business was a powerful force in sugar, and Tate was a millionaire. He had a reputation for concern for his workers and opened a building with a bar and dance hall across the Thames from his refinery, called Tate Hall. He also had an interest in art, not just the great masters, but the modern art of his time. In 1889, giving his own collection of 65 contemporary paintings as a core, and a donation of £80,000 towards construction, he persuaded the government of the day to establish the National Gallery of British Art. This later expanded to become Tate Britain, incorporating the Tate Gallery on its original site, which opened in 1897, where Millbank Prison had once stood. Numerous other donations were made to educational and health-orientated institutions, often of a non-conformist inclination. In 1898 he was offered a baronetcy for the second time, and reluctant to offend the Royal Family he accepted it.

One-and-a-half miles away from Tate’s Silvertown refinery was the factory of a rival manufacturer, the Scotsman Abram Lyle III. Lyle had been born in Greenock, in Scotland, an important shipping port, and his father made barrels, which were used, among other things, for shipping muscovados sugar from the West Indies. Lyle went into the shipping business, chiefly sugar, and then into sugar refining, with a friend called John Kerr. In 1872 Kerr died, and Lyle went in search of a site to establish his own factory, to produce a light sugar syrup which he sold as ‘Golden Syrup’. This kind of sugar syrup is used as a sweetener in baking, as topping on puddings, and as a spread, rather as maple syrup or corn syrup is used in North America. Although he struggled at first, sometimes having to ask his workers to wait for their wages, his business succeed. His syrup was sold in a lidded tin, with a green and gold design showing a lion surrounded by bees. This is a reference to the Bible story of Samson finding a honeycomb in the carcass of a lion he had killed. The original tin design, unchanged since 1885, is still used today.

Lyle was a sober man, his father having died an alcoholic, and unlike the philanthropic Henry Tate, he concentrated on business. Besides his shipping, he also had interests in railways, giving him control over all stages of his sugar supply from the islands to the refinery. He did not confine his business to syrup but also diversified into sugar-related products. In 1890 he began to produce sugar for brewing beer, and in 1897 he was manufacturing candies and chocolates. By 1905 he was selling molasses for animal feed. With his seven sons now running the business, Abram Lyle & Sons was a successful family business by the time World War I broke out, although Abram III had died in 1891.

By this time German sugar beet had taken over from the West Indies as the major supplier of sugar to Britain, but the war changed all that, with the beet fields becoming battlefields. To prevent price rises from the resulting shortages, the government established a Royal Commission on Sugar Prices and took control of pricing. Despite the price controls, and the technical challenges of converting beet-sugar refining methods to cane-sugar refining, both Tate and Lyle enjoyed large profits during the war years. By 1921 they were the two largest refiners in the country, and the day after the Sugar Commission ended its controls, the two firms signed a merger. Between them, they now controlled 50% of the total refining capacity of the country.

Henry Tate had died in 1899, and his three sons, along with outside shareholders, numbering around 100, now controlled Henry Tate & Sons. One son, William Henry, died the year of the merger, and a second, Edwin, retired. This left Ernest William Tate as the only family member in the business. Similarly, although sons and cousins were still in control, by 1920, Lyle & Sons was trading as a public company, and it also had outsiders on the board. After negotiations which had begun late in 1918, the two firms became Tate and Lyle Company Ltd. Lyle Golden Syrup continued for some time as a separate entity. The merger ended the not-always-friendly rivalry that had existed between the ‘Tateses’ and the ‘Lyleses’, which had grown up due to the close physical proximities of their refineries.

The years between the wars saw the resurgence of cane-sugar as the primary global source and the expansion of Tate & Lyle as the top-dog in the sugar industry. By 1939 the Plaistow refinery was the largest in the world, producing 14,000 tons of sugar a week. A new component was added to cope with the production – a 180-foot tall tower. Once WWII broke out, it quickly fell in the Blitz.

After WWII was over, a new Labour government under Clement Attlee set out on an ambitious program of nationalization of key industries. Sensing they were on the list, Tate & Lyle launched an aggressive campaign against the government. In an early use of cartoon characters for political purposes, the company developed ‘Mr Cube’ – a sugar cube armed with a sword and shield, to lead the charge in their advertising and on speaking tours, where employees defended the company’s independence. They were never nationalized.

Since 1937 Tate & Lyle had owned the refining arm of a large rival company called Marquis. This firm had been founded in 1910 by a Danish businessman called Michael Kroyer Kielberg, who operated a molasses importing fleet out of Liverpool docks. In 1963 Tate & Lyle finally acquired the whole business, and re-named it United Molasses.

1976 saw the discovery of sucralose, a no-calorie sweetener, developed by researchers at Queen Elizabeth College, University of London, with the support of Tate & Lyle. They created SPLENDA®, which today holds 62% of the artificial sweetener market. Ten years later they moved into the starch business when they took a major stake in Callebaut Frères et Lejeune, a Belgian extractor of sugar from starch, founded in 1873. By 2000 they had absorbed the company completely, as their starch division, Amylum. Like so many other companies, they carried out numerous acquisitions during the 1990s, converting the business into a diverse multi-national.

2010 was a turning point for the business when it sold all its sugar and syrup refining to American Sugar Refining, Inc. In the same year, it also sold its molasses business to W&R Barnett Ltd. Today Tate & Lyle describe themselves as a leading global provider of speciality food ingredients and solutions’. Their business is primarily the refining of specialized products such as sucralose, starches and gums, and refined fibre products. All of these find their way into manufactured foods and beverages, as well as industrial products, animal feeds, pharmaceuticals and personal care items.

Sites to Visit

There is a blue plaque at the site of Henry Tate’s first shop, 42 Hamilton Street, Birkenhead.
Henry Tate’s grave is in West Norwood Cemetery, Streatham Common, South London. A public library he endowed faces the gates, and his home, Park Hill, now converted into housing units, is nearby.
The Tate Gallery, famous for its collection of works by J. M. W. Turner, among many other treasures of British art, is located at Millbank, London, SW1. It is open every day, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Entry is free.

An Anglophile Meditation: An Essay On The English Stately Home – Book Excerpt

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:57:16 GMT

The following is an excerpt from my recent book Adventures in Anglotopia. It’s my favorite chapter of the book and gives you a good idea of what to expect in the book. It’s available from booksellers everywhere – go to this page to get the links to all the bookstores to buy a copy.

Your journey to the Stately Home starts with a long driveway that takes you far away from the local village with the same name. The driveway is a single track lane, possibly in need of maintenance. Occasionally, another car comes in the opposite direction, and you both have to drive off the road slightly into the grass to let each other pass. There is no sign indicating a Stately Home nearby. There are fallen trees on the grounds; later you learn this is part of their conservation management of the land. There might even be deer milling about, occasionally crossing the road and forcing your wife to shout, “Deer.”

Then, you round a bend. There it is, sitting perfectly in the landscape as if it was planned, which of course it was. Green hills surround it. There’s a fine grass lawn leading practically right up to the door with a small tan gravel driveway that will crunch under your feet when you walk on it. You pause to admire the view, hoping no one honks at you from behind. You may even pull the camera out and snap the perfect picture of the grand old house sitting in the landscape.

The house is Palladian, obviously. Maybe neo-gothic or possibly a mishmash of many architectural styles, but probably Palladian, the minimalist classical architecture imported from Europe. The house is at least 300 years old, in its current form at least. The Palladian facade hides elements that are far older. Some say the house dates back to before William the Conqueror. You have trouble believing that anything can stand for over a thousand years, but this is England. There are plenty of things that have stood for much longer.

You continue along the drive until you get to the car park. It’s what the British would call a “bodge job.” Basically, a muddy area that was once grass but has been worn away by the legions of visitors who have come to see this very famous house. Thankfully, you brought your wellies with you, and your umbrella because it’s raining. You park the car. Shockingly, you have to pay to park the car, but you brush it off, thinking every bit helps keep the house in order.

The walk from the car park takes you on a circuitous route, and you begin to think that you’re being led astray. Eventually, you arrive at the swanky visitor’s center, newly constructed using Heritage Lottery money and designed to blend into the landscape so it doesn’t detract from the grandeur of the very famous house. You pay your admission, grateful you got a slight discount for some reason because the full admission price for a family of four was almost £100.

But you brush it off again, thinking it all goes to a good cause.

You’re let past the gate, and into the gardens. The gardens are what the place is really famous for, but you’re not there to see the gardens, you want to see the house! Still, the gardens suck you in with their sublime beauty. It’s raining, but the garden is still in full bloom. Vibrant colors surround you. You follow the path and come to a lake, man-made by the famous landscape architect with a name that sounds made up. They had to dam an entire river to make this view.

Arcadian.

That’s what the guidebook says, and you don’t quite know what that means, but you soon learn that arcadian means exactly what’s in front of you: a manmade lake in a manmade landscape with manmade follies designed to look like Greek and Roman temples, filled with fake statues of gods and goddesses. But it all works together. It all looks vaguely familiar because of all the famous films and TV shows that have been filmed there, seeking the perfect Arcadia for lush, romantic period pieces.

You follow the path around the lake, desperately seeking the house. You catch a chill. Conveniently, one of the follies has been turned into a café offering cheap cups of tea and biscuits. It’s enough to warm your cockles on this cold and rainy summer day. Or spring. Or autumn. But not winter because the house and gardens are closed then. You sip your tea and admire the view again.

What time is it?

It suddenly doesn’t matter because you’re in an artificially timeless landscape and you don’t want to leave.

You look to your left and see the famous temple from that scene in that movie with the rain. Or you turn to your right and see the lake with the sexy man who comes out of the water. You look up and imagine an alien invasion coming from the sky. Hollywood movies sure find some creative uses for grand old Stately Home gardens. Most of all you remember that feeling you had watching that “Perfect British Drama” for the first time. You sigh, content that the place you watched was real, and you’re there to share it with your loved ones or family.

You’ve had enough of the garden and the rain. The sun comes out as you make your way to the house. The house is famous all around the world. It was on that one TV Show everyone was talking about. When you round a corner, leaving the gardens, there it is. And you pause. Then you remember you have to return to the concept of time because your tickets to the house are on a timed entry system to control the flow of all the people who’ve come from all over the world to simply look at the place. Thankfully, you’re bang on time.

As you approach the house, all the scenes in all the movies and TV shows you’ve seen with the house begin playing in your head. Perhaps you start humming the iconic theme song. You enter the house and enter into an immediately disappointing entryway. It’s not grand like on the TV show, and then you realize, thanks to the information in the pamphlet included with your ticket, that most of the interiors were filmed elsewhere, on a soundstage. But that doesn’t matter. You’re still there, and it looks vaguely familiar. There’s a fire roaring in the entryway. You suspect that fire is roaring the entire year because it’s July and still freezing in the house.

Perhaps the home is still owned by the ancient family that has always owned it. Despite the decline of the British Aristocracy, privations of war, onerous death taxes, and generations of inbreeding, they’ve managed to hang on to the place. Or perhaps they didn’t, and it now belongs to the National Trust who try to maintain the house as it was in its long gone heyday. But the family still gets to live there, in a small apartment of twenty rooms at the back of the house. The house is in a perpetual state of shabbiness. That’s the way the National Trust got the house, and that’s the way they’ll keep it. Or perhaps the charity that now runs the house will keep it that way. Either way, everyone is very well aware that the selling point of the house is that it never changes.

It was reluctantly opened to visitors on strange days of the year; as a consequence, it feels like it’s always filled with too many people. There is no guided tour; you’re trusted to wander around on a set path through the house. There’s a docent in every room, perfectly willing to talk your ear off about some obscure element of the room. Sometimes, you let them because it’s interesting. Sometimes, you can’t wait to get out of the room because the person is slightly worrying you with a nervous tick or a bad smell. You wish that wasn’t the case because there was something interesting in the room, but you couldn’t find out anything about it.

Every room is filled to the brim with inexplicable treasures. The detritus of hundreds of years of materialism and hoarding – a complete unwillingness to throw anything away. It could be valuable, or not. Every little element adds to the feel of the place and mustn’t be changed. Even when the house is closed, and the place is cleaned from top to bottom once a year, every item is cataloged, photographed and meticulously put back into place exactly where it was. Everything is just so.

The pathway leads you from grand room to grand room. Then, you go upstairs, and the rooms become smaller all of a sudden. This is where the family lived. And you get the joy of looking at their toilets and their closets. If you’re very lucky, you might even get to see some vintage clothes that someone sourced from a local charity shop. The house has the most remarkable smell. It feels at first familiar, then foreign. It’s a combination of dust, mold, and old leather books. It’s marvelous.

Then you get to the part of the house that is less ready for visitors, the parts of the house they can’t afford to restore because the family is too poor, or the National Trust doesn’t deem it worthy. Here you see the real decay of long gone aristocracy, the echoes of a dead people. Then you find yourself on a staircase going down to the kitchens. The kitchens didn’t use to be on the tour, but since the hits of several shows set in Stately Homes, everyone suddenly gained an interest. So, now you have the kitchens set up as they were In The Past. Even the kitchens were grand.

Wow, these people sure knew how to live.

That is until their economic burden became too much for the local and state economy, and the house had to be sold off. At least it was sold off. Other places like this were simply torn down or blown up in a farcical spectacle that would never be allowed today.

Still, the estate is a center for local employment. A landscaped garden still needs gardeners. The house still needs maintenance men. There’s an army of volunteers too, but a large number of people are still employed to make sure this house doesn’t change. Instead of working for an absentee lord with his own sense of entitlement, they work for managers who know how to maximize a Heritage Asset of National Importance.

You come out of the kitchens and back into the open; it’s raining again. You make the soggy walk to the stables where the café and gift shop are conveniently located. You have another cuppa, but this time have a proper lunch because no grand day out to a Stately Home is complete without an ethically sourced local meal. You’re tempted by the honesty secondhand bookshop at the back of the stables. You hope to find a moldy old book that perhaps might have once belonged to the house library, but most are just books nobody wanted anymore and didn’t have the heart to throw away, and so they just donated to the local charity shop.

As you survey the house and think about it, you imagine yourself living in it. Despite being a place of great wealth, it has a feeling about it that it could be just quite achievable, even if you’re a middle-class American. It’s easy to imagine yourself as William Waldorf Astor coming to rescue to the place from ruin. Of course, that idea is beyond silly. You’d have to be independently wealthy to own and maintain a house like this. And even if you could, it would be kind of wrong to have it all for yourself. You look around at all the families and couples having a grand day out. This house now belongs to all of them.

And that’s beautiful – almost as beautiful as the house, and the gardens, and the landscape.

Even if you only got to experience it for a few hours, you inhabited the place for a time. You finish your cup of tea, eat the last piece of chocolate cake, make the muddy walk back to your car, and then go on to the next attraction on your list. A piece of you stays at that house. If you’re in the area again, you know you’re going to pay another visit because you can, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., weekends only, from March to October, and one week before Christmas. At least.

WHERE TO BUY ADVENTURES IN ANGLOTOPIA

Amazon (Print and Kindle): Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile: Thomas, Jonathan W: 9780985477080: Amazon.com: Books
Barnes and Noble (Print and Nook): Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile by Jonathan W Thomas, Hardcover | Barnes & Noble®
Indiebound: Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile | IndieBound.org
Bookshop.org: Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile
Books-a-million: Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile by Jonathan W. Thomas
Half Price Books: Adventures in Anglotopia: The Makings of an Anglophile by Jonathan W. Thomas
Book Depository (ships worldwide): Adventures in Anglotopia – Global Shipping
Kobo: Adventures in Anglotopia – eBook

The Uncertain Future of Glastonbury 2021…

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 16:34:36 GMT

Hello, Good Evening, and Remain Indoors! If we all do it now, we might actually have a chance at a proper Glastonbury Festival this year.

Last month, Emily Eavis told the BBC “we’re still quite a long way from being able to say we’re confident 2021 will go ahead.” And, making it dire, according to Michael Eavis, it looked like Glasto “would seriously go bankrupt” if they had to cancel another festival, although disaster would be averted “as long as we can make a firm call either way in advance.” The co-arrival of the first COVID vaccines and a new, more virulent, strain later that month did not help matters.

When asked what would have to done to ensure a 2021 festival happened, Emily Eavis replied: “That’s sort of the issue, really: It’s just too early to say. We’re talking about a situation where the goalposts move weekly and sometimes daily. Clearly the vaccine is being rolled out, and that’s great news, but there isn’t yet any kind of clarity or consensus on what things will look like in May – when we’d usually have thousands of staff on site – or June, when we’d obviously have the festival. We’re doing everything we can to plan for next year. The hard part is understanding exactly what we’ll be planning for, and what impact that will have on what we’re able to do. But, right now, I’m not sure there’s anything we could do that would completely ensure we can welcome 200,000 people to spend six days in some fields in June 2021.” She also talked about her hopes for event cancellation insurance like Germany, although given that PRS for Music has recently decided to raise tariffs on livestreams, it might be a bit much to expect something like that:

I think everyone – including government – wants there to be festivals next summer. But because of the huge uncertainty I just spoke about, and the fact that events take months to plan, there’s a huge risk for organisers that they’ll spend an awful lot of money and then see their events being cancelled for reasons completely outside of their control. And when those events go down, a huge number of jobs and livelihoods will disappear again too. So, for that reason, I would certainly love for the UK government to offer some kind of support for events in the case that they are forced to cancel. Germany announced a €2.5bn (£2.3bn) event cancellation fund last week, and the whole UK festival industry would certainly welcome something similar from our government.

She even hoped that the intended headliners for 2020 (Kendrick Lamar, Paul McCartney, and Taylor Swift) would find the time to perform the Pyramid Stage eventually, and even mentioned that “We’re actually looking into the possibility of streaming some things from here if we can’t run the full show next year. We really want to get busy with planning some gigs – even if they’re to be streamed!”

On December 31, Michael Eavis received his COVID vaccine, telling Somerset Live:

“It is amazing to be in one of the first groups of people to have the COVID-19 vaccine in Somerset. It is great that everyone across the country will be offered the vaccine in due course. It is really important that everyone takes the opportunity to have the free vaccine when it is offered to them – it is our only real chance of protecting ourselves and our friends and family from this disease. As far as the festival is concerned, wouldn’t it be wonderful to get the majority of our population vaccinated before June 2021, so that we can celebrate next summer in proper “Glastonbury style’.”

And then, on January 4, Mel B of the Spice Girls announced on the Must Watch podcast that ““I know that Glastonbury’s been cancelled so a lot of, like, big stage performances are kind of on hold again this year, which is sad but we’ve got to get this virus under control, I guess.” When pressed on where she heard that it was cancelled, she claimed they did announce it that day.

Here’s what Mel B just told us on the latest Must Watch podcast: pic.twitter.com/xAkOCTuDxl

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) January 4, 2021

So, naturally, people went to Emily Eavis for confirmation. They did not receive it.

Nope, no news this end. Will let you know right here as soon as there is news

— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) January 4, 2021

Happy new year to you all!
There’s no news this end yet, we haven't cancelled. Will let you know right here as soon as we have an update..

— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) January 4, 2021

And for those ticketholders who are waiting with bated breath to head to Somerset that last weekend of June, she confirmed that, should it be cancelled again, tickets would carry over to 2022.

Of course

— Emily Eavis (@emilyeavis) January 4, 2021

As I write this, the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport is currently weighing the options that many larger and smaller festivals would have for 2021, whether they can go ahead or not, whether they’ll receive financial relief so they can afford to go ahead when the pandemic is finally over. And their needs make it extremely problematic for pandemics, with Sacha Lord, Parklife’s co-founder saying “Social distancing does not work at any of these events. It’s a festival. You just cannot put social distancing in place, so we are anticipating that we will be operating at 100 percent [capacity].” Not everyone can do what the Flaming Lips did and put everyone in the audience in their own little bubble.

Quoth the Association of Festival Organisers’ general secretary Steve Heap, “If we get as far as Easter and we still don’t know that crowds can gather at festivals, however large or small, then we are in a catastrophic situation with this year’s season,” and larger festivals like Glastonbury would have to decide by the end of this month.

Well, here’s hoping that, with proper testing and vaccinations, we can finally make this happen this year:

Bowie Lazarus film to be given virtual screenings, and the story behind his Snowman scarf.

Mon, 04 Jan 2021 13:51:34 GMT

Well, I wish I could have included this little tidbit in my actual review of The Snowman, but Duncan Jones only unveiled the news a few days before Christmas.

Of course, if you’ve seen my review, you’ve probably seen that intro, and if you haven’t, you probably still have, and here it is for those of you who haven’t:

Bowie delivers his little monologue with such conviction that you barely even notice that he looks nothing like the boy in the actual short. But, of course, there’s that scarf. Fortunately, for those of us wondering whatever happened to it, Bowie’s son Duncan Jones actually found it in storage boxes:

Went looking for sock monkeys in the storage boxes and FOUND THE SCARF!!! YAY! pic.twitter.com/1pcdPqcD5U

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) December 23, 2020

And shortly after, Brian Harding, the producer of the intro, replied:

Hi Duncan! I am Brian Harding, who produced the filming of your father’s introduction to The Snowman. You may not remember the history. The Scarf was knitted by the lady in the accounts department of TVC, the production company who made the animation. She came onto the set and presented it to David. When filming was over, David asked very politely if he could keep the scarf to give to his son, Zowie. This was the only fee he charged for the filming and I believe he offered his services for personal reasons. He was charming throughout and totally professional. I am glad that the scarf found its way to the destination he intended: from the dude to another dude.

As mentioned in my previous review, it looks like the “personal reasons” were related to his admiration of Briggs’ work, specifically When the Wind Blows. So, it looks like that mystery’s covered.

On that note, it also turns out that Lazarus, the show Bowie wrote (with Enda Walsh) as a sequel to his film The Man Who Fell to Earth, and which was running in New York at the time of his death, will be given virtual screenings between January 8 and 10 in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. The film, starring Michael C. “Dexter” Hall, Alan “Take Your Bloody Pick” Cumming, and Sophia Anne Caruso, was filmed during the London run, screened in New York’s Kings Theater in May 2018, and will be making its premiere (in places other than Kings Theater) with this series of virtual screenings, presented by Robert Fox and RZO Entertainment that marks the fifth anniversary of Bowie’s passing. The showings will start somewhere between 6-9 PM local time on January 8 and 9, and 1-4 PM on January 10, with prices being (depending on location) £16, €18, $21.50 American, and $28.50 Australian. Tickets can be found here. And now, I leave you on the most substantial excerpt of the filmed version I can find at the moment:

Hopefully, the film will be given a better release after these screenings. I’m still waiting on a proper release of Be Pure Be Vigilant Behave.

Boxing Day 101: What is it and how do you celebrate?

Sat, 26 Dec 2020 15:00:17 GMT

When Americans first try to read up on British Christmas traditions, they’re often confused by Boxing Day, which always falls the day after Christmas. It’s not a religious holiday and there’s nothing to actually celebrate. So, what exactly is it and what is it for? Well, fear not, we will try to lift the shroud of mystery and show you what it’s all about.

It’s Basically An Extra Day Off

The main thing that sets Boxing Day apart from all the other holiday is that it’s basically another day off after Christmas. In Britain, Boxing Day is always a Bank Holiday which means banks are closed are most retail stores are required to have limited hours (usually up 6 hours open by law). In the USA, many people go right back to work the day after Christmas. Having another day to recoup the madness of the holidays is so much more civilized.

Started Off As A Servants Holiday

There are competing theories for the origins of the term, none of which is definitive. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the earliest appearances from Britain in the 1830s, defining it as “the first week-day after Christmas-day, observed
as a holiday on which post-men, errand-boys, and servants of various kinds expect to receive a Christmas-box.” In Britain, it was a custom for tradespeople to collect “Christmas boxes” of money or presents on the first weekday after Christmas as thanks for good service throughout the year. This custom is linked to an older British tradition: since they would have to wait on their masters on Christmas Day, the servants of the wealthy were allowed the next day to visit their families. The employers would give each servant a box to take home containing gifts, bonuses, and sometimes leftover food. Now, it’s a holiday for everyone, but gifts are no longer exchanged.

Famous For Its Sales

In America we have Black Friday Sales, in Britain, they have Boxing Day Sales, which is usually the biggest shopping day of the year in the UK as people rush to the stores to snag great deals and return the gifts they didn’t want. It’s a great way for retailers to clear out the stock they have leftover from the Christmas shopping binge. The deals have moved online in recent years, but you will find Britain’s stores and malls (shopping centers) heaving on Boxing Day, but only for the 6 hours they’re allowed to be open. Deals can be had if you can brave the crowds.

Boxing Day Lunch

Sunday Roast is a venerable British tradition, and many families will extend it to include Boxing Day, even if it’s not on a Sunday. Sometimes they’ll eat a roast, or they’ll eat a lunch of leftovers from the previous day’s Christmas Feast. Pubs are usually open, so you can go get a nice meal as well. It’s a time for families and friends to spend the day together without the pressures of work and school.

A Day for a Stroll

Many of Britain’s tourist attractions that are usually closed for the winter will open up for the period between Christmas and New Year’s. This includes many famous Stately Homes that will have special opening hours. So, Boxing day is a great day to go out for a walk in Britain’s beautiful countryside and enjoy some famous buildings while you’re at it.

A Day For Hunting

Boxing Day is also one of the main days in the hunting calendar for hunts in the UK and US, with most hunts (both mounted foxhound or harrier packs and foot packs of beagles or bassets) holding meets, often in town or village centres. It’s not an uncommon sight to see the hunts streaming across the English countryside on this day, and many people will watch the meets as spectators. Though fox hunting is now illegal, they are still able to practice the tradition as long as no foxes are harmed or killed (usually the dogs are sent after a scented dummy).

Simply put, Boxing Day is a day to enjoy the joys of the mid-winter break from the rat race. To eat good food, get a good deal or spend time with your friends and family. It’s certainly a lesson we can all learn from!

Happy Christmas: The Queen’s Christmas Broadcast 2020

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 15:28:08 GMT

As is tradition, we’re posting the Queen’s annual Christmas broadcast, just released on YouTube (it normally airs at 3 pm UK time on Christmas Day). In her 2020 broadcast, The Queen reflects on acts of kindness and heroism during this extraordinary year that has challenged all of us.

Happy Christmas from Anglotopia! Stay safe, stay healthy!

Prince Charles and Other British Stars Read Twas the Night Before Christmas

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 17:15:36 GMT

A special treat from the Royal Family today as Prince Charles, Camilla and a host of British stars read the classic story ‘Twas the Night before Christmas.’

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas: Charles and Camilla in Star-Studded Christmas Reading’ The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall were joined by some of the UK’s most famous actors for a recital of the famous poem ‘Twas the Night before Christmas’. Charles and Camilla were joined by national treasures such as Maggie Smith, Joanna Lumley, Tom Hardy, Daniel Craig and more for a very special reading of the Christmas classic. The poem was recorded in support of the Actors’ Benevolent Fund, of which The Prince has been Patron for over 20 years.

Happy Christmas from Anglotopia!

A Brit Back Home: Toni’s British Christmas Turkey Tales

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 15:56:52 GMT

So, the turkey situation here in England is “interesting” to say the least. Because of the ever-changing COVID rules, our turkey farmers haven’t known whether they were coming or going, with regard to Christmas. Originally we were allowed to have 6 people in our homes, then the rules were tightened up and then relaxed for five days over Christmas where up to three households could mix. Now, since a lot of the country is either in Tier 3 or 4, it’s all a bit tight.

In Tier 4, (London and the South East), tier rules still apply over Christmas. We can’t see anyone indoors who is not from our household or support bubble. Outdoors, we can only meet with our household, support bubble, or alone with one other person from another household in a public outdoor space. So that means no back garden BBQs either. In other tiers, we may see a maximum of two other households (our ‘Christmas bubble’) on Christmas Day, and we can’t see anyone from a Tier 4 area.

(Caveat – This info is from the government web site and was correct at the time of writing, but could change in a flash.)

So where do turkeys come in, apart from the obvious way? Since many families who had planned to get together as two or three households live in different tier levels, those plans have all gone pear-shaped. The turkey farmers are now left with giant turkeys that no one wants, while families who are now only feeding say, four, are desperately searching for small turkeys. One solution to the giant-turkey overstock is to saw them in half and sell them that way, and this seems to be solving a lot of problems for both buyers and sellers.

In our case, however, it seems the seller is getting rid of its giant turkeys by simply sending them out in lieu of the smaller one that was actually ordered.

To back up a little, for some reason, we (my husband and I) didn’t order a turkey. We’ve had a lot going on on the domestic front so either it slipped our minds or we blithely assumed it wouldn’t be a problem. (Cutting us some slack here – this is our first Christmas in the UK since 2003 so we weren’t quite sure of supply and demand.) When we finally thought “Oh dear”, there were no turkeys to be had and none online in time for the big day. When I finally found an online supermarket that a) had turkeys and b) had a delivery spot (another thing that’s as rare as hen’s teeth), I pounced. Delivery secured, turkey problem solved, smug smiles all round.

And yes, pride did come before the fall. When the delivery pitched up, the driver made some joke about the feeding of the five thousand and handed over a bag that was straining under the weight of its contents. A ten kilo (22 lb.), “feeds 18-22” turkey to be exact. Being averse to undue risk, (i.e., no turkey), I took delivery and immediately put out the call for decent turkey leftover recipes on Facebook. Among the repliers was a friend in Tier 4 like me, whose turkey (and guest) were in Tier 2 – family dinner cancelled, and turkey inaccessible. She snapped up my offer of half the beast, and we began making plans to meet somewhere just off the London Orbital (M25) motorway.

My husband (the chef in our house) was wondering just how we were going to manage this, given that we don’t have an electric saw of any kind. Me googling the opening hours of the nearest ER probably didn’t inspire confidence either. I was more concerned about people witnessing two suburban women pulling up to a Shell station, not buying petrol and furtively exchanging a bag of “something”. My Facebook friends were looking forward to the next installment of “What can possibly go wrong in the Hargis household this Christmas”. Given that we’re usually skiing in Colorado at this time, previous years have delivered much entertainment for anyone but me.

Examples include (but are not limited to):

Broken bones (not just once)
Concussions requiring ER treatment
Altitude sickness requiring oxygen tanks in bedrooms
Expensive orthodontic braces left in tissues on coffee table, swept up by dad and put outside in the trash. (And yes, he did rummage through till he found them)
Ridiculously dangerous drives up mountains through unforeseen blizzards (never again)

I could go on.

My Facebook friends may be disappointed to learn, however, that we’ve averted a turkey hand-over saga since my friend managed to secure a small turkey at her local supermarket. I deliberately said “handover” saga, since the Hargis family is not known for smooth festive seasons.

Watch this space, and y’all have a safe and Happy Holiday.

British Christmas: Ten of the Best British Christmas Songs of the Last 20 Years

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 16:34:22 GMT

Since the first British singles chart in 1952, getting a chart-topping single has been the goal of many a British artist. While some of these singles over the next couple of decades were Christmas-themed, the real race to get a Christmas song on the charts didn’t start until 1973 when Slade and Wizzard both released songs in time for the holidays. Those songs, “Merry Xmas Everybody” and “I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday” kicked off a trend for more artists to create new Christmas songs. Some of the more successful entries have included “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, “Merry Christmas Everybody”, and “Mistletoe and Wine” amongst others. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the 21^st Century hasn’t produced some of its own wonderful Christmas entries and we have listed ten of them below, cobbled together from the charts of 2000 to the present.

“December Song (I Dreamed of Christmas)” – George Michael

Peaking at number 14 in 2009, the late, great George Michael offered this song crafted by longtime writing partner David Austen. The song is sung by a protagonist remembering what they loved most about Christmas. It focuses on a message of peace and includes a number of holidays symbols that accompanied the holiday.

“At this Time of Year” – Craig Phillips

Craig Phillips was a bricklayer before his win in the 2000 season of Big Brother propelled him to stardom. He gave his prize to a friend with Down’s Syndrome who needed surgery and recorded “At this Time of Year” in the same year to benefit the Down’s Syndrome Association. The song’s lyrics present a warm image of friends and family gathering together during the holidays to share warm memories. Rather than beginning a new career in music after his no. 14 hit, he opted to be a TV presenter instead.

“Christmas Lights” – Coldplay

Coldplay released the single “Christmas Lights” in 2010 when it managed to get as high as number 13. The song tells the story of a man who regrets a breakup wandering the streets of London trying to win back his love. The song was released as a digital single, and the band also released a “making of” for the music video which was originally to be shot in London before the recording schedule necessitated a change.

“What If?” – Kate Winslet

While known more for her acting than singing, Kate Winslet made it into the charts in 2001 with “What If?”. Reaching the high point of number 6 in the charts that year, the song came from an animated, and live-action adaptation of A Christmas Carol and the song itself involved Winslet as Scrooge’s lost love Belle wondering what would have happened if she had not left Ebenezer.

“Santa’s List” – Cliff Richard

Certainly no stranger to the charts across several decades (including a few Christmas singles), rock legend Cliff Richard got to no. 5 in 2003 with “Santa’s List”. The song is a request for peace at Christmas, the only thing Richard wants from Santa that year. The opening lyrics put some new spins on a couple classing Christmas carols, including “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.

Not on YouTube, so can’t share it!

“Once Upon a Christmas Song” – Geraldine

Another selection that hit number 5, comedian Peter Kay and pop singer Gary Barlow penned “Once Upon a Christmas Song” as a feel-good parody piece performed by Kay’s character Geraldine McQueen. Proceeds from the single went to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children charity. The lyrics focus on how we keep singing all the same songs over and over again as they get stuck in our heads but also how good they make us feel.

“One More Sleep” – Leona Lewis

Model, singer, actress, activist, and wearer of multiple hats Leona Lewis hit number 3 in 2013 with the lovely tune “One More Sleep”. The lyrics of the song, which is not a cover of the hit from A Muppet Christmas Carol, is about counting down the nights until her lover is back home to celebrate the holidays with her. The video is a wonderful Christmas romp at a Christmas party for the singer and her friends, a nice reminder of how the holidays bring together the people that matter most to us.

“21^st Century Christmas” – Cliff Richard

Cliff Richard has been able to hit the charts in 8 different decades, and he managed his second chart-topping Christmas single in 2006 with “21^st Century Christmas”, which reached number 2. Cliff tries to cram as many references to how newer technology has changed Christmas, including texting, DVDs, satellites tracking Santa, and so on, while also pointing out that the things that really matter about the holiday haven’t changed even if the world has.

“Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” – The Darkness

The no. 2 Christmas hit single of 2003 comes courtesy of glam metal rock band The Darkness and singer Justin Hawkins’ falsetto pipes. “Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” is a hard-rocking song about how we hold onto the joy of the holidays even when the worst parts of life try to quash our cheer. Background vocals are provided by the choir of Haberdasher’s Aske’s Hatcham College, a secondary school that bandmembers and brothers Justin and Dan Hawkins’ mother attended. There’s a fun bit of double-entendre in the song and certainly a successor to their glam rock forebears, Wizzard and Slade.

“River” – Ellie Goulding

The only song on the Official Singles Chart to be about Christmas and hit no. 1 during the holiday season, Ellie Goulding’s “River” covers the Joni Mitchell song that never quite made it into the charts. The song talks about a breakup that occurred around Christmas time, opening with piano notes from “Jingle Bells” before descending into a melancholy tone. The breakup leaves the singer not in a mood to indulge the joy of the holiday, instead of wishing for a river that she could use to skate away from everything.

Chris Rea’s "Driving Home for Christmas” starts to trend due to COVID restrictions

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 15:10:31 GMT

Hello, Good Evening, and… I think it’s appropriate to say Remain Indoors given the circumstances. But before I get to that, I’d like to tell you a little story about British bluesman Chris Rea. In December 1978, he wanted to get home to Middleborough from Abbey Road. He originally planned to take a train there, but the record label didn’t want to pay it, and his girlfriend decided to drive all the way there and bring him back in her Austin Mini. Naturally, the traffic was excruciating, and the fact that he has just managed to hit it big for a song that wasn’t really representative of his sound didn’t help. In his words, the other drivers “all looked so miserable. Jokingly, I started singing: “We’re driving home for Christmas…” Then, whenever the street lights shone inside the car, I started writing down lyrics”. Eight years later, he was fooling around with pianos with Max Middleton and he finally found a tune for those lyrics. Later in the year, he recorded it as the B-side for his single “Hello, Friend.” Two years later, he re-recorded it, with strings, for his album New Light Through Old Windows and was released as a single just in time for Christmas. It peaked at No. 53.

But the story doesn’t end here. In 2007, it started coming back on the charts every Christmas. It peaked at No. 33 that year, in 2012, it was #12 on the ITV’s The Nation’s Favourite Christmas Song, and in 2018, it wound up almost scratching the Top 10 on the UK Singles Chart at one point, peaking at #11. And then, 2020 happened.

A few days ago, the Prime Minister announced that an originally planned loosening of COVID regulations for Christmas would not happen, due to an increasing spread in the South East of England, which is currently believed to be because of a particularly virulent new strain of the virus. As a result, he announced new restrictions, including a new tier of COVID restrictions (Tier 4) that applied to London, and the East and South-East of England. Non-essential businesses will be closed until at the very least, December 30th. Residents must stay at home with limited exemptions, and outside of support bubbles, people are not to mix with people outside their own households and nobody is to enter or leave Tier 4 areas.

And then, he said “We cannot continue with Christmas as planned.” Originally, there were plans for “Christmas Bubbles” that would allow up to three households to celebrate together. Now, these only applied on Christmas Day itself, and only to Tier 1-3 areas.

As a result, people took to Twitter, making lots of jokes about the situation using the song as an example. Some of the highlights. Celebrities were among the first to do this, with Virgin Radio presenter Ben Jones tweeting “Chris Rea has turned back around,” Dom “Trigger Happy TV” Joly tweeting “Chris Rea turned around by Covid Marshalls at Tier Four roadblock on A40” and Rob “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here NOW” Beckett followed two hours later with “I’ve just seen Chris Rea doing a u-turn on the A1.”

Some of the highlights:

@Holbornlolz: That’s Chris Rea fucked.
@Marcherlord1: Chris Rea’s Christmas song is now a criminal offence.
@ChrisWest179: Live pictures from outside Chris Rea’s London residence. (Accompanied by this photo; unfortunately for Chris West, Chris Rea is not, in fact, the Prime Minister.)
@SteveBugeja: Chris Rea better turn back.
@ClueDont: Chris Rea’s full name is Christmas Rearrangements.
@MrDavidWhitley: Chris Rea’s going to have to turn back.

A few days ago, I got news that Liam Gallagher’s new single might be the Christmas Number One this year, but, with all this in mind, I find myself thinking that maybe “Driving Home for Christmas” should be it. A song looking forward to the days when people can actually do what we want, and, frankly, it’d at the very least be nice if Chris Rea actually had more than one Top Ten hit. So, if you’re British, buy copies of the song, if you can get your friends to do so, and they can get their friends to do it, and a couple degrees of separation later, we might actually have this underrated Christmas gem hit the top.

The Fiver – Five Ways to Decorate Like a Brit at Christmas

Fri, 18 Dec 2020 19:43:13 GMT

Seeing as a large part of American culture came from the United Kingdom, it’s not much of a surprise that many of our Christmas traditions and decorations originated there as well. Greenery such as mistletoe, wreaths, and holly and ivy had their origins in the Winter Solstice that became part of Christmas as ancient Britons converted to Christianity. German immigrants brought over Christmas trees, but they didn’t become fashionable in the UK and US until Prince Phillip brought one into Buckingham Palace. All of these decorations persist as part of our holiday culture today, but there are still differences between the ways Americans and Brits decorate for Christmas. If you want to make your Christmas a little more British, you can take an example from below. Let us know what some of your favorite British Christmas decorations are and share them with us in the comments.

Nativity Scene without Jesus (Until the 24^th)

Many Americans who celebrate Christmas often keep a manger scene in their home. This set depicts the birth of Jesus in the manger behind the inn after Mary and Joseph couldn’t find lodging anywhere else. The setting id often depicted as a crude barn and includes figures of the animals, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, as well as potentially the shepherds, three wise men, and angels. Normally Americans will keep Jesus in the Nativity scene the entire Christmas season, but it’s more traditional in the United Kingdom not to add Jesus until Christmas Eve, closer to his birth. You can also wait to add the shepherds until then and the wise men on Jan. 6^th (the date of the Epiphany, typically celebrated as the day the wise men visited Jesus).

Citrus Ornaments

The tradition of giving oranges (especially in stockings) at Christmas in Britain appears to have started in the Victorian era, though it may be much older. Oranges were a sign of wealth but also harkened back to the legend of St. Nicholas, who left three bags of gold for a poor man so that his three daughters would each have a dowry for marriage. The three bags eventually became symbolized as three gold balls, which bear a striking semblance to oranges and still serve as the symbol of pawnbrokers (for whom Nicholas is a patron saint). You can either decorate an orange to become a Christingle (intended to symbolize Christ as the “Light of the World”) or follow one of a dozen recipes online to dry out orange slices and use them as Christmas ornaments for your tree.

Put Your Christmas Stockings on the Bed

The tradition of Christmas Stockings also begins with St. Nicholas who put the bags of gold in the girls’ stockings that were hanging on the bed while the girls were sleeping. In Britain, stockings at the head or foot of the bed are still the traditional place to locate them. Other accounts of the story have the stockings hanging on the fireplace to dry. Part of the reason for this stocking location in America might have to do with the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by American poet Clarke Clement Moore (better known by its first line “’Twas the night before Christmas”). The poem served as one of several origins for Americans’ image of Santa Claus and the description of the stockings being “hung by the chimney” with care may certain have influenced people to do the same.

Christmas Crackers

Confectioner Tom Smith of London created the first Christmas crackers in 1847 as a clever holiday way to sell his bon-bons, but over time they have come to include small toys, a paper crown, and jokes. They’re normally part of the traditional British Christmas dinner, and everyone is expected to wear their crown and read the bad jokes to each other. Christmas Crackers also tend to be very colorfully decorated on the outside, and their placement on your plate serves as an added decoration for the holiday.

Tone Down the Christmas Lights

Most Americans are familiar with the scene in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation when Clark Griswold turns on his home’s Christmas lights and nearly blinds the whole neighborhood or Tim Taylor from Home Improvement causing a blackout with his decorative light show. Exterior Christmas lights are a very big deal in the States, with whole neighborhoods holding competitions and lighting events drawing visitors near and far, but Christmas lights are a more subdued affair in the UK. Sure, the high streets and shops will be aglow with incredibly extravagant and colorful Christmas lights, but most homes in the UK don’t go so large. That doesn’t mean you can’t put out any, but for a British Christmas, less is more.

The Protest Against a Potential Livestreamed Concert Tariff

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 15:16:57 GMT

Hello, Good Evening, and Remain Mindful of Social Distancing Protocols! A month ago, I detailed a plan that I think could have potentially helped many venues survive this pandemic: with socially distanced concerts financially unfeasible, livestreams an ever-growing art form, and laws that allow bands to perform at venues as long as there’s no audience physically present, it only made sense to me that the many struggling venues that can barely afford to keep the lights on at this time could livestream concerts at the venue, with the proceeds paying to keep them going.

Unfortunately, a new tariff could make this even harder. In the before times, there would actually be a tariff of 4% on most concerts. However, recently, PRS for Music, one of the main music licensing organisations, has decided to propose an increase in this tariff to a minimum of 8% (for concerts that gross under £50k), going up every 50k until it reaches 17% (for livestreams that gross over £450k). It was proposed as a “temporary experimental and non-precedential rate structure,” (one which is notably higher than those of many European nations, with the Netherlands charging 7% and Germany charging a flat rate up to €1200, which any British livestream grossing more than £13,556.38 [at the current exchange rate] would surpass) but it appears that this plan was devised without the input of those in the industry. Furthermore, it will apparently also apply retrospectively, so, yes, any livestreamed concerts that have gone on, will have to pay more once it goes into action.

As a result, the Music Managers Forum (MMF) and Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) have drafted a letter to PRS for Music CEO Andrea Martin that you can read here. The most salient section of the letter comes later, when they say:

Charging artists up to 4 times the live rate strangles rather than nurtures this innovation. For some of the smaller artists who have just covered their costs livestreaming, it will be impossible to find this additional money retrospectively.

There’s been quite a few signatories, including managers for artists like Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, both Gallagher Brothers, Michael Kiwanuka, Biffy Clyro, PJ Harvey, Johnny Marr, Nick Cave, Robbie Williams, Muse, Gorillaz, Blur, and quite a few agencies whose roster is so big they just had to link to their websites. As for artists themselves, signatories include Sandie Shaw (nice to hear from her again after all these years), Howard Jones, and members of Blur, Radiohead, and Primal Scream.

PRS for Music has responded to the letter, saying:

PRS For Music members, alongside many others across our sector, have been very badly impacted by the shutdown of live music this year. We welcome the many initiatives to move live concerts online and PRS For Music has designed an online live concert licence, which will allow the necessary rights to be licensed.

The proposed pilot licence scheme is still evolving. As conversations with our partners are active and ongoing, it would not be right for us to provide further detail or comment at this stage while we await their assessment and feedback.

Of course, our primary role is to protect our members’ rights and to ensure they are paid fairly for their work, which is more important than ever now. We hope that these conversation will progress quickly.

Unfortunately, the three organizations involved have yet to actually go into consultation about the tariff.

I don’t have any music for this (I have yet to find any British songs that include lyrics about tariffs), but since Sandie Shaw’s been involved, I may as well post her Eurovision-winning performance of “Puppet on a String.”

The First Victorian Christmas Trees

Tue, 15 Dec 2020 18:43:28 GMT

Christmas trees are a practically essential part of Christmas. Whether you opt for a real or fake tree, color or white lights, a star or an angel, nearly everyone who celebrates Christmas has one in their homes. It seems inconceivable that there was ever a time when these decorations weren’t part of our holiday cheer, but in the history of the holiday, they’re fairly recent for the United Kingdom and the United States. How the Christmas tree originated and became popular is a fascinating story with a popularity that first took root in both countries during the Victorian period.

Coming originally from Germany, there is speculation about how it got started as a decoration. Stories have it that reformist Martin Luther created the first Christmas tree when he placed candles on an evergreen tree in 1536. Luther walked out of his home in Wittenberg one night in December and saw the stars twinkling through the tree branches and thought they looked like candles. He then placed candles on an evergreen as a symbol to remind his children of Christ coming down from the heavens to become one of us. The first documented representation of a Christmas tree was on the cornerstone of a private home in Turckheim, Alsace (part of modern-day France) in 1576.

Over time, the popularity of the Christmas tree spread across Germany. While most people think it didn’t come to Britain and the States until the first Christmas that Prince Albert spent with Queen Victoria, he wasn’t actually the first German spouse of a monarch to do so. Queen Charlotte, the wife of King George III, was originally from the duchy of Mecklenburg-Strelitz in Germany. In 1800, she placed a Christmas tree in Queen’s Cottage a Kew Palace for her children. This first display of a Christmas tree by the Royal Family didn’t catch on with the public, and it would be a few decades before the practice returned with the next German-born royal consort.

Now, that isn’t to say that Christmas trees were unknown in Britain until Albert, but they were not as prevalent. Aristocrats and top government officials might have one in their homes, and Prince Albert had brought in furs to the place starting in 1840 without any dramatic increase in popularity. What makes the difference here, as with a lot of things even today, was the media. In the 1840s, several periodicals, including The Illustrated London News, ran a drawing of the Royal Family around their Christmas tree. As the family was incredibly popular with the people, the tradition started exploding across the UK. By the 1860s, nearly every wealthy family had a Christmas Tree in their home.

While Christmas trees became a fixture for the upper classes, the trees did not extend to the middle and working classes for several decades after that. Instead, most Britons would experience Christmas trees at public entertainments, charity bazaars, and hospitals. By 1906, the Poor Children’s Yuletide Association had formed and raised funds to send seventy-one Christmas trees to the poorest slums in London so that all of London’s children could experience a Christmas tree. In the years further beyond Queen Victoria’s death, the trees’ German origins were not forgotten, and they decreased in popularity during World War I before regaining ground.

And so, while the Christmas tree was certainly a part of British culture prior to the Victorian period, it was really the first illustrations of the Royal Family’s tree that helped begin the spread of Christmas trees across Britain. This influence included the United States, where Christmas trees had already been popular with German immigrants, they became to grow popular with non-Germans as well during this time, partly due to the publication of the same illustration of the Royal Family in Godey’s Lady’s Book. As you gaze at your tree this year, think that it might not even be there but for its massive increase in popularity during the Victorian period.

The Fiver – Five Christmas Carols and Their Origins

Mon, 14 Dec 2020 15:59:58 GMT

One of the best parts about the Christmas season is singing all the Christmas carols from years past. They can be religious-based hymns, local songs that grew in popularity beyond their borders, or just fun little tunes with catch lyrics and tunes. Whether you enjoy singing them to yourself while baking cookies or going from door-to-door serenading your neighbors, there are plenty of great British carols to consider for making your Christmas merry. The ones we have included below are only five such examples, so be sure to let us know some of your favorites in the comments.

“Angels from the Realms of Glory”

If you ever hear this song, you might think it sounds very familiar, partly because it sometimes uses several different pieces of music, including the composition of “Les anges dans nos campagnes” (also called “Iris”) from the ancient French tune. The lyrics for the carol were composed by Scottish poet James Montgomery in 1816. Montgomery’s original refrain (“Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ our newborn King”) is also sometimes replaced with “Gloria in Excelsis Deo”. This change, along with the several different pieces of music it’s paired with can make for a different experience every time you hear it.

“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”

As with “Angels from the Realms of Glory”, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” can be performed with different compositions of music, but most oftentimes utilizes “Stuttgart” by Christian Friedrich Witt or “Hyfrydol” by Welsh composer Rowland Prichard. The lyrics were created by Methodist leader Charles Wesley in 1744. Wesley based the lyrics on the verse Haggai 2:7 and a prayer from the time. He specifically wanted it to be an Advent hymn for people to consider the birth of Jesus and prepare for the promised second coming. The lyrics treat Christ’s birth as God’s gift of a Messiah to the world.

“Coventry Carol”

The earliest days of theater often involved players telling religious stories, becoming known as “Mystery Plays”. Amongst the earliest of these plays in the City of Coventry was The Pageant of the Shearmen and the Tailors, from which “Coventry Carol” originated. No one is exactly sure who the author was, but the oldest recorded version of the lyrics was made by Robert Croo in 1534, and the melody dates from 1591 by Thomas Mawdyke. While the plays were eventually suppressed, Croo’s manuscript survived, and Thomas Sharp used it to write a book on the city’s mystery plays in 1817. After the Birmingham Free Library where Croo’s manuscript existed burned down in 1879, Stewart’s copy became the only record of the carol. The carol retells the part of the Nativity story in which Joseph is warned to leave for Egypt before Herod begins his campaign against the children of Israel.

“Joy to the World”

Based on Psalm 98:4 (“Make a joyful noise unto the Lord…”), Psalm 96:11-12, and Genesis 3:17-18, Isaac Watts composed the lyrics in 1719. The music was arranged by American Lowell Mason based upon “Antioch” by British-German composer George Frideric Handel. Prior to this arrangement, Watts’ lyrics were performed with a variety of very different tunes. Lowell’s composition also borrows some of the notes from Handel’s “Lift Up Your Heads” in Messiah and despite its British roots, “Joy to the World” is actually the most published hymn in North America.

“What Child is This?”

“What Child is This?” began as a poem written by William Chatterton Dix in 1865 that was called “The Manger Throne” from which the lyrics were largely rewritten into the hymn we know. The inspiration for both works was the prophecy of Jesus’ birth found in Isiah 9:6 and is composed as a question-and-answer format with the Shepherds who visited Jesus as the questioners. The lyrics weren’t actually published until 1871 and arranged with an old English folk melody known as “Greensleeves” by Henry Ramsden Bramley and John Stainer, though it’s not certain exactly which of them was responsible.

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“What If?” – Kate Winslet

“Santa’s List” – Cliff Richard

“Once Upon a Christmas Song” – Geraldine

“One More Sleep” – Leona Lewis

“21st Century Christmas” – Cliff Richard

“Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)” – The Darkness

“River” – Ellie Goulding

Chris Rea’s "Driving Home for Christmas” starts to trend due to COVID restrictions

The Fiver – Five Ways to Decorate Like a Brit at Christmas

Nativity Scene without Jesus (Until the 24th)

Citrus Ornaments

Put Your Christmas Stockings on the Bed

Christmas Crackers

Tone Down the Christmas Lights

The Protest Against a Potential Livestreamed Concert Tariff

The First Victorian Christmas Trees

The Fiver – Five Christmas Carols and Their Origins

“Angels from the Realms of Glory”

“21^st Century Christmas” – Cliff Richard

Nativity Scene without Jesus (Until the 24^th)