Monthly Archives: November 2025

I Will Remember Him

Personal

I always like to acknowledge Remembrance Day by posting something on Facebook about the people who have given their lives in the service of their country. Usually, I post a list of names of people of many nations, both ‘enemy’ and ‘friendly’, who died on active service, to honour their sacrifices.

This year, though, I’m going to bring it a lot closer to home, as well as posting it here on my blog. This is Trooper Brett Hall, of the Royal Tank Regiment (RTR). Brett was 21 years old when he died of wounds received in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. His Viking armoured vehicle was hit by an insurgent’s IED (Improvised Explosive Device, basically a home-made bomb or mine), and although he was evacuated to the UK for the very best medical treatment, he died of his wounds four days later on the 16th September, 2009.

The reason this story brings it home for me is because I knew Brett. He was from Dartmouth and was one of my son Richard’s friends at Dartmouth College. He came over to our house several times and was always a real character with an hilarious sense of humour. You can see it in his face in this portrait of him in his uniform.

It’s when something like this happens, to someone in uniform that you know, that brings it home just how precious is our freedom, and how much we owe to service men and women, both current and retired, when they enable that freedom on our behalf.

Every time I visit The Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset, which is several times a year, I visit the RTR Memorial Wall, which is just outside the entrance to the Museum.

Brett’s name is inscribed there, and I go there to pay my respects.

Brett would have been almost 40 now, and remembering him is how I make these people’s sacrifices real to me.

I will remember him. And we will remember them.

‘White Christmas’

Personal, Humour, Reblogs

Here’s a re-do of an essay I published ten years ago, almost to the day. I’ve rewritten it but included much of the original prose in there; it’s supposed to be humorous (like I should have to explain that! 😂 ) but hey who knows.

Anyway, bah, humbug! It’s that time of year again!

Yes, it’s the time of year where the shops are full of Christmas displays, some of them works of absolute genius, some of them not quite so good. The time of year where we get bombarded with so much commercialism, adverts and just general Christmas tripe, that by the time it’s all over, many people are sick of it! 🙂 But still, the kids love it and despite all the trappings of the commercial Christmas, still somehow the magic of it has not quite disappeared, at least not for the young. And it’s always great to remember the greatest Gift of all, the Gift of Jesus ❤️

When I was about 14 years old, I had got so tired of hearing non-stop Christmas music in the stores that my cynical mind decided to make a game of it all. To me, at the time, the song that epitomised the whole Christmas selling-things-at-you environment was the song ‘White Christmas’, which was first performed by the legendary Bing Crosby on Christmas Day, 1941.

So I decided to make a game of it. And I’ve been playing that game now for nearly half a century!

I decided that, each year, I was going to see how close I could get to Christmas Day without hearing the song ‘White Christmas’ in a commercial environment.

For me, that would mean hearing it in pubs, shops, malls, Christmas fayres or on TV/radio adverts of any kind. Basically, anywhere where the song was being played in order to try and make people feel ‘Christmassy'[1] and therefore buy more stuff. Maybe it’s because I am a tight-assed Yorkshireman who keeps a solid fist wrapped around his dosh; I don’t know. And my family play it too.

But that’s the game: to see how close you can get to Christmas Day without hearing White Christmas!

I think the closest I have ever come to ‘winning’ was 23rd December, and that was in 1994. Bah, humbug, indeed!

You can make up your own rules as to what counts as a proper ‘hearing’ of the song. For example, what arrangement counts as having ‘heard’ the song? Does it have to be the Bing Crosby version, or would it still count if you heard the Michael Bolton version? What about if you just decide you want to listen to it on your iPod? What if someone learns that you are playing the game and just hums it at you ‘for a laugh’ and to troll your game? And what about the starting time for the game; what if you hear in in mid-July?

For me, I count any hearing of any version, in a commercial environment (including TV/radio ads), after 5th November – what we in the UK call ‘Bonfire Night’. For me, that’s the point at which I personally consider it fair game for the shops to put up their Christmas stuff (rather than late August as some idiots do) – so that’s when my White Christmas game begins!

Speaking of early Christmas selling-things-at-you, here is a photo taken this September!! in my local Morrisons:

I mean, what??? In September? It’s like when they put up the ‘Back to School’ displays in June or July, just as the kids are rejoicing in their upcoming six weeks’ holiday. ‘Back to school’; what already?? Just let them be kids, and don’t spoil their holidays! Commercialism certainly has a lot to answer for!

Of course, it will probably be impossible for someone working in a pub or shop to play this game. All Christmas CDs have a version of this song on them, so in those circumstances you’re stuffed. Sorry about that!

Don’t get me wrong, the song – in the original Bing arrangement – is absolutely gorgeous, full of incredible chord sequences and lovely dynamics. And I love it to bits. 

Interestingly, over the last few years, others too have invented a similar game, based on a different song. They call it ‘Whamageddon‘ and the idea is the same, except the song is Wham!’s 1984 song ‘Last Christmas’. You try to reach Christmas Day without having someone play ‘Last Christmas’ at you[2]. I love that; obviously others in this world are just as cynical about Christmas as I am!

But still the White Christmas game[3] is just a bit of fun; in my family and friends, those of us who play the game always confess to each other when/if we hear the song, and cheer on those who haven’t heard it yet. It’s interesting in that for me, I find it quite funny to see my reaction each time I hear the song for the first time each Christmas season. You know, when it’s ‘Game Over’. Sometimes I just grin wryly, sometimes I think, ‘Oh if only that queue had moved just a little quicker, and I could have been out of here!’ But whatever, my first thought is usually like ‘Ah well, that’s it for another year! Never mind….’

So then, are you in? Get to it! Good luck!

And then we’ll see you in January for the adverts about St. Valentine’s Day. But at least they don’t play a matching song at you!

Footnotes

Footnotes
⇧1 Crikey I hate that word!! Again, bah humbug!
⇧2 However, the difference from the White Christmas game is that it only counts if you hear it between December 1st and December 24th, and it has to be the original Wham! version
⇧3 Or ‘Whamageddon’, if that’s more your thing. Or both; why not?