Scrooge and Marley (Deceased)

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

Coming Soon...

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!

C is for Cards, Cake and Candy Canes

The postal service is something we all take for granted, but without it there would be no convenient way of sending sackloads of cards every year. As a result, the greetings card as we know it didn't appear until the Victorian era when a reliable (and, more importantly, affordable) postal service was created.

The first true commercial Christmas card went on sale in 1843. It was designed and printed at the behest of Sir Henry Cole, a businessman and philanthropist, who had played a key role in introducing the Penny Post in 1840. Thanks to the Penny Post, it was possible to send a letter or card anywhere within Britain. Cole was also the director of the newly founded Victoria and Albert Museum in London and it was his idea to give stamps perforated edges (an affectation that self-adhesive stamps retain today, even there is no physical need for them).


Did you know...?
By the late 19th century, there were between six and twelve mail deliveries per day in London, permitting correspondents to exchange multiple letters within a single day. Sounds a bit like email!

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These are the last recommended posting date for Christmas 2011

Standard Parcels ~ Wednesday 14 December
Second Class and Recorded Signed For ~ Saturday 17 December
First Class and Recorded Signed For ~ Tuesday 20 December
Parcelforce express 48 ~ Wednesday 21 December
Parcelforce express 24 ~ Thursday 22 December
Special Delivery ~ Thursday 22 December
Special Delivery with Saturday Guarantee ~ Friday 23 December

Don't forget to stop by again tomorrow to see what I'll be covering under the letter D. In the meantime, you can read more about the history of the Christmas card in What is Myrrh Anyway? - and its American counterpart Christmas Miscellany: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Christmas.

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Tired of the same old Christmas cake? Then why not try Dan Lepard's caramel Christmas cake?

Interested in finding out more about the history of the candy cane? Then follow this link.

The Chrismologist's Advent Calendar - Day 15

Fed up with the same old Yuletide gifts and festivities? Then why not take a trip to yesteryear and make yours a Victorian Christmas? After all, it could be argued that our modern Christmas owes more to the Victorian era than any other period in history.


Just follow this link to the BBC's Victorian Farm page for a whole host of authentic Christmas recipes and activities dating from Queen Victoria's reign. There's everything from toy theatres and keepsake boxes to paper flowers and Wassail punch, with something new being revealed everyday.

For example, here's a recipe for making mince pies with real meat.

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.