picture from Metro

Today was one of those days that reinforced my love of the Christmas season and filled my heart with the joy of holly and ivy; I was like Ebenezer Scrooge waking up Christmas morning seeing the world in a new and enlightened way. All I had to do was visit the city centre and witness everyone going about their festive business and I was a changed man who danced down the road and serenaded the homebound tram passengers with a medley of tinsel tinged favourites sang from the heart and handed out mince pies.

Actually, none of that really happened. What really happened was that although I was only in town for a few hours my blood was boiling and I wanted to punch every living person in the throat. There wasn’t the slightest hint of Christmas spirit in evidence and this is why I have turned against the holiday and lost my love of all things Christmas. The entire seasonal marvel was confined to the Market Square ice rink and market; it was as if this was a festive bubble in which it might as well not even have been December on the outside.

I had a bit of work to this morning before I went to town but didn’t really get round to the main job which was recording this week’s podcast. Although I compiled the music I spent too much time on advertising various things and will now have to record and release The Sunday Alternative in the morning, which puts a strain on my Sunday but needs must. To psyche myself up for the Christmas shopping battle I spent an hour on the park with Jack, and I’m sure we could have both spent the entire day there without a care in the world. My advertising splurge on Twitter and Facebook was focused on everything I have for sale, with Christmas just around the corner people might be thinking of buying someone an MP3 player or a Kindle and what better way to enhance the gift than pre-loading it with something? To counter the self-indulgence of flogging my wares I also threw out a few plugs for music from a variety of my musician friends, this method of goodwill seemed to work as I saw a rise in audio book sales during the afternoon.

While the audio book sales have been respectable my Kindle account has slowed off a bit. As my last book came out in January 2013 it stands to reason that activity on my Amazon page has been quiet, so hopefully when Bowie Day comes out next month it should stir up a few views for my other books. Having my daily blog available on Kindle for 99p a month hasn’t really picked up but there are a few people opting out of reading it for free, it doesn’t make me a lot of money once Mr. Amazon has taken his slice however. A Christmas Tree by Charles Dickens will be sent out to a few people tomorrow, as I am ‘selling’ that particular audio book by email only to people who make a donation and then email me to tell me. Anything over one pound is good value for an audio book lasting just over forty minutes and thankfully a few people agree.

Talking of Dickens, tonight we watched another film adaptation of A Christmas Carol, this time it was Albert Finney in Scrooge.

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