Merry Christmas
and
a
Happy New Year
Somewhere else a child is born And somewhere wars will end. And somewhere a sacred vow is sworn That every soul will be a friend.
About the picture
Picture: ‘The Christmas Carol’, published and copyrighted in 1888 by J.F. Hill & Co. Of Augusta, Maine, USA. Created and signed by Hatch & Co, New York. The Hatch family were chromolithographic printers and important figures in the city’s commercial life, printing banknotes among other things. The last of the line, Warner Daniels Hatch, drowned in 1884 in mysterious circumstances. The New York Sun News suggested it was suicide brought on by debts. (Good luck reading the machine-generated text derived from the microfilm below.)
The firm struggled on for a bit. This card was produced for its final Christmas. I found it in the Library of Congress.
The guitar in the picture is a typical ‘parlour’ instrument of the 19th century, possibly Italian, then considered ideal for well-bred young ladies. Later the ancient chordophone was toughened up, manufactured in bulk, and shipped to impoverished families, pioneers, hillbillies, freed slaves, religious maniacs, hobos and juvenile plank-spankers. The piano industry responded to the existential threat with a newspaper campaign of vilification that made the six-string thing all the more attractive to rebellious spirits and romantics. The ‘classical’ guitar came a bit later. I like it too.
The quotation below the card is the middle-eight or bridge from my 2024 song ‘What Are We Doing For Christmas?’, which I will perform for you if you are very unlucky. It is not difficult. I like simplicity.
I wrote it on various abandoned and wrecked pianos frequented by lonely people. Here’s a burst. My writing partner Nick Dale made a very nice guitar version. I’ve incorporated a bit of his arrangement but am learning to pick it rather than strumming. Like most of my demos this one ends in collapse and sudden profanity. [Shield your ears.]
Thank you for the gift of friendship.
A Christmas Treat for all the family from One to One Hundred
Here are some classic children’s cartoons (animated films if you insist) extracted from Public Domain sources for us all to enjoy. I’ve put them on my VIMEO channel. You can comment, download, etc. If any copyright holders are unhappy, blah blah blah, you know where I live. If not, ask the police. I’ll put the kettle on and we can have a chat about rights.
My favourite is Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol (1961), because Grampy Wally Morrish had a little cine projector. We watched it after Christmas dinner and before the start of our annual all-in, no-holds-barred, barely-supervised wrestling competition with our numerous cousins.
My online Empire
Like all empires, this one started with high hopes and lots of energy and is now somewhat delapidated and tending towards entropy. But you are welcome to peruse this site (johnmorrish.com), which is theoretically for my personal productions, as well as the other two.
This one is about my writing group, which is now less of a group than an evangelical street-preaching mission perpetrated around the world. It has lots of exercises, ideas and stories.
This is our film site. During lockdown my droogs and I listed as many films as we could, in Cheltenham and on television, often providing critical commentary. Some of it is pretty good, and it is researched and accurate. Have a look. There is a search facility but it is useless (as are all search facilities since the rise of the Googleplex). [Axes grinding, repeat till fade.]
Obviously, the name has now been appropriated by another little clique, but I’m a ‘property is theft’ guy and I am taking that as a tribute rather than scurrying off to see the Men in Wigs. I prefer the sort you see strutting around Cheltenham in pearlescent twin-sets or retired boss-class uniform.
At this point I shed a brief tear for folkhandbook.com (an HMTL4/CSS2 effort buggered up by Apple when they stopped me embedding MIDI links. Subsequently left to wither away, like the state); journolist.com (name purloined by American ‘liberal’ journalists after I couldn’t afford the $100 I needed to rescue it after the destruction of MovableType by its owners, now richer and more famous); bristolstool.com (I was the only person who got the joke); and various others. If you can work the Wayback Machine, you can find them. My data-driven firstborn calls them ‘comedy gold’, which is harsh – but I can take it.
I also currently own a funny and very taboo domain name but can’t be bothered to do exploit it. Details on receipt of a stamped-addressed envelope, preferably stuffed with folding money. Clue: Paul Dacre might like it. And feature in it.
Annual Report
In preparation.
But as a taster, here I am on Chinese propaganda TV, praising one of their ludicrous imperialist initiatives, and billed as a Daily Telegraph reporter. Don’t worry, I’ve warned the Telegraphs drones about this horrible trick played on an elderly hack, but they’ve decided to file that under ‘can of worms: not to be opened’. Or possibly under ‘John being John‘.
It as fascinating as all propaganda (ie, not very). If you want to see my appearance scroll to about the 30 minute mark and enjoy my AI-improved gibberish.
Why did I get involved? Clue: I’m a satirist. And I can’t resist a pretty face. Currently preparing a little treat for Falan Gong, whom I enjoyed wrangling with outside M&S, where they were competing with the Salvation Army, the JWs, the awesome busking boy-band who appear now and again, and Socialist, the organ of the left-wing micro-organism formerly known as the Militant Tendency. Oh yes, it’s the 80s all over again. First time as tragedy, second as farce.
Contact me at mail@johnmorrish.com, 077 88 515387. 2 Priory Mews, Sidney Street, Cheltenham GL52 6DJ. December 2024. I am always happy to receive feedback and to provide it.