Author: rfhurley

I got to keep moving, I got to keep moving
Blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
Mmm, blues falling down like hail, blues falling down like hail
And the day keeps on remindin’ me, there’s a hellhound on my trail
Hellhound on my trail, hellhound on my trail

If today was Christmas eve, if today was Christmas eve
And tomorrow was Christmas day
If today was Christmas eve and tomorrow was Christmas day
All I would need is my little sweet rider
Just to pass the time away, to pass the time away

You sprinkled hot foot powder, mmm, around my door
All around my door
You sprinkled hot foot powder, all around your daddy’s door
It keeps me with ramblin’ mind rider
Every old place I go, every old place I go

I can tell the wind is risin’, the leaves tremblin’ on the tree
Tremblin’ on the tree
I can tell the wind is risin’, leaves tremblin’ on the tree
All I need is my little sweet woman
And to keep my company, hey, hey, hey, hey, my company

This song was originally recorded by the Irish Rovers. This is a strange sort of “Irish Jig / Electronica Fusion”. Her vocals (as usual) sets her version apart from the usual fare.

Margaret Thatcher, who has died aged 87, was a political phenomenon. She was the first woman elected to lead a major western power; the longest serving British prime minister for 150 years; the most dominant and the most divisive force in British politics in the second half of the 20th century. She was also a global figure, a star in the US, a heroine in the former Soviet republics of central Europe, a point of reference for politicians in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

In Britain, the Thatcher years were a watershed. After them, the ideals of collective effort, full employment and a managed economy – all tarnished by the recurring crises of the 1970s – were discredited in the popular imagination. They were replaced with the politics of me and mine, deregulation of the markets and privatisation of the state’s assets that echoed growing individual prosperity.

Tramp the Dirt Down
by Elvis Costello

I saw a newspaper picture from the political campaign
A woman was kissing a child, who was obviously in pain
She spills with compassion, as that young childs
Face in her hands she grips
Can you imagine all that greed and avarice
Coming down on that childs lips

Well I hope I don’t die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh I’ll be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
Because there’s one thing I know, I’d like to live
Long enough to savour
That’s when they finally put you in the ground
Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down

When england was the whore of the world
Margeret was her madam
And the future looked as bright and as clear as
The black tarmacadam
Well I hope that she sleeps well at night, isnt
Haunted by every tiny detail
Cos when she held that lovely face in her hands
All she thought of was betrayal

And now the cynical ones say that it all ends the same in the long run
Try telling that to the desperate father who just squeezed the life from his only son
And how it’s only voices in your head and dreams you never dreamt
Try telling him the subtle difference between justice and contempt
Try telling me she isn’t angry with this pitiful discontent
When they flaunt it in your face as you line up for punishment
And then expect you to say thank you straighten up, look proud and pleased
Because youve only got the symptoms, you haven’t got the whole disease
Just like a schoolboy, whose heads like a tin-can
Filled up with dreams then poured down the drain
Try telling that to the boys on both sides, being blown to bits or beaten and maimed
Who takes all the glory and none of the shame

Well I hope you live long now, I pray the lord your soul to keep
I think I’ll be going before we fold our arms and start to weep
I never thought for a moment that human life could be so cheap
Cos when they finally put you in the ground
They’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down

I posted this with someone special in mind.

Lyrics by Lowell George

It’s so easy to slip
It’s so easy to fall
And let your memory drift
And do nothin’ at all
All the love that you missed
All the people that you can’t recall
Do they really exist at all

Well my whole world seems so cold today
All the magics’s gone away
And our time together melts away
Like the sad melody I play

Well I don’t want to drift forever
In the shadow of your leaving me
So I’ll light another cigarette
And try to remember to forget

It’s so easy to slip
It’s so easy to fall
And let your memory drift
And do nothin’ at all
All the love that you missed
All the people that you can’t recall
Do they really exist at all

The Santa Claus tradition goes back to the fourth century Nicholas of Myrna, a bishop in what is now Turkey, who is the patron saint of children. That is why Samichlaus is often dressed as a bishop, complete with mitre and staff, and doesn’t always wear red. He does, however, have a white beard.

Santa Claus, wearing his red and white cape, is more of a marketing instrument from the United States – even if his origins go back to St Nicholas.

A Swiss Vigilante Santa: Have a Merry Schmutzli!

What is most interesting about this tradition is the fact that it actually give children something to fear at Christmas. No longer is the classic taunt “Santas’ watching” applicable, the phrase “Schmutzli is watching” has far more fear behind it, and only rightly so, the black faced nemesis is associated with stealing children, carries a broom of sticks with which to hit misbehaving children and is even called Père Fouettard or Father ‘Whip’ in the French speaking part of Switzerland.

Local teenagers have even been known to dress up as groups of Schmutzli’s and go around implementing their own style of vigilante Christmas justice on younger children.

One Christmas song can add a new verse:

You better watch out
You better not cry
Better not pout
I’m telling you why
Schmutzli is coming to town

He’s got a stick, And he’ll whip you twice;
It doesn’t matter if you’re naughty or nice
Schmutzli is coming to town

Sounds like excellent incentive for good behavior from children to me.

More here

OK. The part where Santa is no longer an anagram:

Krampusnacht

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLnl5ZWG4tg

Krampus is the dark companion of St. Nicholas, the traditional European winter gift-bringer who rewards good children each year on December 6. The kindly old Saint leaves the task of punishing bad children to a hell-bound counterpart The Horned Devil, also known as Krampusknown by many names across the continent — Knecht Ruprecht, Certa, Perchten, Black Peter, Schmutzli, Pelznickel, Klaubauf, and Krampus. Usually seen as a classic devil with horns, cloven hooves and monstrous tongue, but can also be spotted as a sinister gentleman dressed in black or a hairy man-beast. Krampus punishes the naughty children, swatting them with switches and rusty chains before dragging them in baskets to a fiery place below.