Christmas Links #24

Help, my turkey won’t fit! Quick fixes for Christmas dinner disasters:
"Avoid common festive disasters with our crisis management tip sheet: stock up on cream and ice, get a decent stick blender and plenty of booze."

All Dead, But Still Alive:
"We’ve no way of knowing for certain what Gordon Murray was doing on 22nd December 1965, but we can take a fairly good guess."

Diary: Alan Bennett.
"11 January. It’s not to disparage David Bowie, but if even a fraction of the tributes being paid to him and his influence were true we would never have had a Conservative government or indeed any government at all."

Your most underwhelming Christmas photos:
"From Santa in Greggs to a Croydon of Christmas past, our so-so festive pictures were even more disappointing than usual this year."

7 Wonders: Christmas (s)hits:
"When it comes to our contributors and Christmas tunes, it seems one woman’s chocolate Santa is another woman’s soggy sprouts. We all agree Susan Hanks is just plain wrong, mind."



Horribly Awesome Version of "All I Want For Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey:
""i put “All I Want for Christmas is You” through a MIDI converter, and then back through an mp3 converter. the result is this garbage"

Victorian Christmas traditions:
"From Christmas cards to decorated trees and Christmas crackers, many of our best-known Christmas traditions are products of the Victorian era."

Costume Party: Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut:
"One of the chief pleasures of the film is its enveloping look into the sumptuous lifestyles of the wealthy (lifestyles made all the more aesthetically pleasing when bedecked with twinkling Christmas lights). The very first shot shows Alice from the back as she takes off a filmy black dress."

The movie that doesn’t exist and the Redditors who think it does:
"Over the years, hundreds of people online have shared memories of a cheesy Nineties movie called “Shazaam”. There is no evidence that such a film was ever made. What does this tell us about the quirks of collective memory?" [Thanks LMG!]

Decades After Daring Rescue, 2 Tennesseans Relive Christmas Miracle:
"On Dec. 24, 1956, when Judy Charest was 3 months old, her father went to take a shower and when he came out, Judy and her mother, Marguerite Hunt, were gone."