Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

It's Christmas Eve, which is the perfect time to read a good, old-fashioned ghost story set in Old London Town...

"Before I begin my story, it must be distinctly understood that Marley was dead – to begin with – just as he had been the previous Christmas Eve, and the seven Christmas Eves before that. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased): The Haunted Man is available now from Green Man Books.

Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

If you're a fan of my Pax Britannia books, then you'll love Scrooge and Marley (Deceased).

Coming Soon...

"Happy Christmas!" from Cadbury

The US owners of Cadbury have been criticised for scrapping the annual Christmas gift boxes they used to send to thousands of retired staff, in order to cut costs. Mondelez International, which has taken over the brand, has written to retired workers telling them the festive offerings are being axed to help plug a £320m pensions deficit. Cadbury previously sent out 14,000 parcels each Christmas, containing chocolate and sweets for former staff. It is thought to be saving about £210,000 annually by abandoning the tradition.

However, in April it was revealed that Irene Rosenfeld, the Mondelez chief executive behind the takeover of Cadbury, had been awarded a 31.5% pay rise increasing her pay package from £14.4m to £18.9m.

To read more about this story, click this link.

I AM SCROOGE

The Chrismologist's Advent Calendar - Day 14

Looking for something a little different to give your loved ones this Christmas? Perhaps one of your
family is a closet Dickens/Zombie horror fan. Well, if so, then I Am Scrooge could be the answer to all your Christmas gift-buying problems.

Marley was dead. Again.
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The legendary Ebenezeer Scrooge sits in his house counting money. The boards that he has nailed up over the doors and the windows shudder and shake under the blows from the endless zombie hordes that crowd the streets hungering for his flesh and his miserly braaaaiiiiiinns!
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Just how did the happiest day of the year slip into a welter of blood, innards and shambling, ravenous undead on the snowy streets of old London town?
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Will the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future be able to stop the world from drowning under a top-hatted and crinolined zombie horde?
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Was Tiny Tim's illness something infinitely more sinister than mere rickets and consumption?
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Can Scrooge be persuaded to go back to his evil ways, travel back to Christmas past and destroy the brain stem of the tiny, irritatingly cheery Patient Zero?
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It's the Dickensian Zombie Apocalypse - God Bless us, one and all!

To buy your copy of I Am Scrooge, click here.

Bah.... Bahhhh.... Brahhh.... Braaiiinnss!

J is for Jethro Tull (and Jingle Bells)

No, not that Jethro Tull, the English agricultural pioneer who helped bring about the British Agricultural Revolution, perfecting the horse-drawn seed drill in 1701.

This Jethro Tull!

Jethro Tull might not be the first name that springs to mind when people ask "So which is your favourite Christmas pop song?" but Solstice Bells from 1976 is suitably festive and much maligned.

Anyway, if you've not heard it before you can enjoy it here now.

For another festive Jethro Tull track, follow this link.

And while we're on the subject of the letter J, here's Jingle Bells sung as you've never heard it before...

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You will find many other such tasty morsels of information in my book What is Myrrh Anyway?- and its American counterpart Christmas Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Christmas.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Ebenezer Scrooge and Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol

Join the campaign to make Ebenezer's Carol No. 1 this Christmas here!

The Chrismologist's Advent Calendar - Day 9

Ebeneezer Scrooge, subject of Dickens' celebrated A Christmas Carol, as you've never seen him before...

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

Dickens more or less invented the Christmas spirit, goodwill to all men and general jollity in this classic ghost story, which also gave us Scrooge, Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit. "I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me."

However, did you know that he wrote the book in only six weeks in 1843? I'm trying to write a novel in the same amount of time and you can follow how I'm getting on here.