An idea worth recycling

As a contributing editor of Total Politics magazine, I warmly welcome its new blog, but I couldn't help but be amused to see that it's been named after one of my old Newcastle Journal columns, Party Lines.

The column was a light-hearted, midweek counterpoint to my more serious "Saturday column" which still continues today.

It was actually the second column of that name to appear under my byline, the first having appeared in Derbyshire Now! magazine from 1992-94.

Sadly it was before the days of teh interwebs so no link but I still have the dog-eared cuttings in my attic somewhere...

My Top 10 Christmas Carols: No 7

7. O Little One Sweet - J.S. Bach

Although the main focus of my Top 10 carol selection is on English choral music, it would be impossible to leave Bach out of the list, such was his influence on the English church music canon. The vocal harmonies in this short carol are as close to musical perfection as anyone has ever come. The best recording I could find of it is in the original German - O Jesulein Suess. It's a little quiet so you may have to turn up the volume on your PCs.

I am dedicating this to my father-in-law, Neil Broome, who loves this kind of music and regularly gets the family to sing it round the piano at Christmas.

My Top 10 Christmas Carols: No 8

8. In Dulci Jubilo: Trad German, arr. R.L. Pearsall.

Everyone knows the tune to In Dulci Jubilo - it was given the prog-rock treatment by Mike Oldfield and is frequently heard in the hymn Good Christian Men, Rejoice, nowadays sometimes rather mindlessly rendered by the PC brigade as Good Christians All, Rejoice. But few if anyone knows who originally wrote it, although its origins appear to be Germanic.

The carol was a regular staple of our Nine Lessons services at St Mary's, Hitchin, so this one is dedicated to Hugo Richardson, Mike Baxter and all my old friends from the choir, in fond remembrance of all those Christmas Eves when we belted it out together.