2011... in quotes

Son:
There's no such person as Father Christmas!
The Doctor:
Oh yeah? [whips out a photo] Me and Father Christmas, Frank Sinatra's hunting lodge. 1952. See him in the back with the blonde. Albert Einstein, the three of us together. Vroom! Watch out! Okay? Keep the faith. Stay off the naughty list. Oo! Now what's this, then? I love this. Big flashy lighty thing. That's what brought me here. Big flashy lighty things have got me written all over them. Not actually. Give me time and a crayon. Now! This big flashy lighty thing is connected to the spire on your dome, yeah? And it controls the sky. Well, technically it controls the clouds. Which technically aren't clouds at all. Well they're clouds of tiny particles of ice. Ice clouds. Love that. Who's she?
Sardick:
Nobody important.
The Doctor:
"Nobody important". Blimey, that's amazing. D'you know, in 900 years of time and space I've never met anyone who wasn't important before.

Doctor Who Christmas special, *ahem* 2010

Not every royal pre-wedding celebration runs so smoothly. Two nights before the current Queen's wedding in 1947, her parents gave a dance at Buckingham Palace that threatened to get out of hand. King George led a conga through the state rooms, while an Indian rajah got drunk and attacked the Duke of Devonshire.

The Independent, Royal Wedding supplement

A decade ago, when Prince William announced that he was enrolling at the University of St. Andrews, its number of female applicants rose by 85%, reflecting his status at the time as the world's most eligible bachelor. Although few can relate to William's particular challenge of searching for a future bride amidst such an overwhelming number of would-be princesses, his problem was reminiscent of a dilemma that confronts transcription factors, which must scan extraordinarily long stretches of DNA to find appropriate targets at which to initiate gene expression.

Biology journal Cell's brilliant contribution to Royal Wedding fever. Cell, 145, 167 (2011)
doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2011.04.001

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I HAD scheduled a number of 'Things We Like At Christmas' posts to automatically post, one a day, throughout this week. But circumstances have changed - a family member has fallen very sick, very suddenly, and it strikes me as insensitive to allow such frivolous festive observations to appear to be my only focus at this time. Today's post published before I could get to a computer to cancel it.

Things we like at Christmas? Family: safe, happy and well. We continue to pray.

UPDATE 31/12/11: We got the best Christmas present we could ever ask for in the form of a phone call on Christmas morning from the family member referred to above. Things are on the mend but for every few steps forward to recovery there have also been setbacks. Things are still sensitive and upsetting so I therefore won't be talking about it here, but I plan to return to writing as soon as I can - if nothing else because that person is one of the main supporters of my writing and a frequent visitor to these pages. I'd like there to be plenty of nice things for her to read when she next comes by.

Things we like about Christmas #9

TRYING to guess who has sent us a Christmas card from the handwriting on the envelope. Matching the postmark to the handwriting can carry a surprising level of intrigue!

Now there you go again, you say

THINGS have been eventful at work, keeping me busy and keeping my cortisol levels high. This means that I have neglected this page, despite many ideas, threads and stories rushing around my head. But I have decided that they must wait - there's no point in forcing them out there unfinished, undeveloped, just to keep a consistent and regular output - Christmas is coming, and there will be ample opportunity to regale you with tales of sheep with fluffy feet, vindictive showers and errant semi-colons in the new year.

There's just time to prepare the obligatory end of year post (this year not featuring a rundown of weird Google search terms that have led to this page, as is tradition, nor the unusual locations of my audience - although welcome to the fray, people of French Polynesia!) and to invite you to join me in a singalong at Rowheath Pavilion this Sunday. Our Christmas Carol service starts at 6.30pm, featuring me strumming in the background, followed by some further musical delights in the bar after. We rehearsed our bar set last night - three-part harmonies and banjo strumming included - and it sounded pretty awesome.

It would be great to see you there, even if you come simply to see the facial expressions I pull when attempting to hit deceptively high notes.

Photos, undoubtedly, to follow.