Merry Christmas! My Christmas wish, listen to more Pogues and skip church, for the children.

First, the most beautiful Christmas song of modern times--The Pogues, live, inexplicably, on St. Patrick's day, singing "Fairytale of New York." Shane Mcgowan is a world treasure.


Second, looks like churchgoing may make you less honest. So, once a year, month, week, skip church and have fun with your kids instead!

Here is an enjoyably impudent piece of research from Innsbruck University. People were observed buying newspapers, using an honesty box to pay. They were interviewed later - so the person with the clipboard seemed unconnected with the newspaper purchase - and asked about age, occupation and attitudes. Men cheated more than women; people over 50 cheated more than the young; higher education made no difference; and by a long chalk churchgoers cheated most. This may be a statistical anomaly. But we all know one thing: religion no more makes people good than lack of it makes the rest of us bad.

From The Guardian.

And to get everyone even more in the spirit: "Christmas 1979" by Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire. Not to give the plot away, but "Merry F****** Christmas to you all."



And as a final Christmas present, yet another Pogues song, live, "If I should fall from grace from God." My youngest, Snapdragon, listening to the Pogues when she was all of, what, five? Said "Irish Punk is just like normal Irish music, only faster."