Thank you, Tim, DM, and Bill! Merry Christmas, Gents! As long as the price is right, I think this is a great little book to get. What I really like is how specific the recipes are.... Bill, this woman's brother has flat out said "Come on, marry my sister." I dare say, they really like me. Must be my spicy side :-) Oh, and I'll post some cool recipes! Josh

Just answered on the other thread about it. It was not as creepy as I'd have expected. Basically it was UN propaganda. Definitely an unusual version, a number of fairly big (at the time) stars. We did feel it was historically and politically, a very important show to see, but not particularly a 'feel good' Christmas movie.

Fascinating! I'd be tempted to try and find some interesting emendations - I'd love to have tea in J P Morgan's study! - but it's a little impractical for me to get there. My favourite paragraph of Dickens is the wonderful short speech by the nephew:- "There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!" I think it's interesting to see from the m/s that the bit about "the veneration due to its sacred name and origin" was an afterthought. I wonder if it he thought about it, and decided to put it in, or whether a reader or editor suggested that he should add it?

Ah, I didn't get them all but similar titles I thought fitted a couple. My carol was, of course, "The Holly and the Ivy" which was sung by our school choir but probably not quite as sweetly as the carol states! It is the evening of Christmas Day here in Western Australia and after a most enjoyable gathering of most of my family, I am now home and glad to be resting in the cool. A hot day today and no pool but at least we didn't need to have to monitor the children. They all swim like fish, even the babies but still need to be constantly supervised of course!