What Do These Songs Have In Common?

1. Mistletoe and Wine, Sir Cliff Richard (1988)
2. Blue Christmas, Shakin' Stevens (1985)
3. Christmas Wrapping, The Waitresses (1981)
4. Little Saint Nick, The Beach Boys (1963)
5. All I Want For Christmas Is You, Mariah Carey (1994)
6. When A Child Is Born, Jonny Mathis (1972)
7. Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End), The Darkness (2003)
8. Do They Know It’s Christmas? Band Aid 20 (2004)
9. Merry Christmas Baby, Mae West (1960)
10. Wonderful Christmas, Paul McCartney (1979)

I guess it depends on your taste in music.  But these were the ten finalists in a most hated Christmas Songs contest held in 2013 by the British coffee house chain, Costa Coffee.  I ran across this list because I was looking up some information on song number one, Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine, a Christmas tune I was unfamiliar with but was going to add to my collection which tells you a lot about my shitty taste in Christmas Carols.

The prize for the winner of this dubious distinction was banned from being played in all of Costa Coffee’s stores. 

Sir Cliff Richard's singles may be as synonymous with Christmas as turkeys and tinsel, but you won't hear them in Costa Coffee during this festive period. The British coffee house chain has banned Sir Cliff's yuletide number Mistletoe and Wine from their 1,600 stores after the 73-year-old's song was named the most hated Christmas song of all time in a poll. Songs by Sir Paul McCartney, Shakin' Stevens and Band Aid 20 also made the top-10 list, based on Costa's survey of 3,000 Brits. Kevin Hydes, Costa's UK retail marketing director, said the song would be banned from all Costa's in-store playlists over the Christmas season because "the festive happiness of our customers and staff is our upmost priority".

In an effort to rejuvenate familiar Christmas songs, Costa has given £10,000 to Youth Music, a charity which gives young people the opportunity to make music to overcome personal challenges in their lives.

How popular was Mistletoe and Wine at one time? Damn popular I guess until the Brits got tired of overplay and it became more like Stilted toes and Whine than anything to do with Christmas.

Mistletoe and Wine became Sir Cliff's 12th number one single when it was released in 1988. It spent four weeks at the top of the UK chart, and sold over 750,000 copies that year. It also secured the 1988 Christmas number one spot. Sir Cliff's other Christmas hits include Saviour's Day and Millenium Prayer.

Sir Cliff Richard's singles may be as synonymous with Christmas as turkeys and tinsel, but you won't hear them in Costa Coffee during this festive period. The British coffee house chain has banned Sir Cliff's yuletide number Mistletoe and Wine from their 1,600 stores after the 73-year-old's song was named the most hated Christmas song of all time in a poll. Songs by Sir Paul McCartney, Shakin' Stevens and Band Aid 20 also made the top-10 list, based on Costa's survey of 3,000 Brits. Kevin Hydes, Costa's UK retail marketing director, said the song would be banned from all Costa's in-store playlists over the Christmas season because "the festive happiness of our customers and staff is our upmost priority". In an effort to rejuvenate familiar Christmas songs, Costa has given £10,000 to Youth Music, a charity which gives young people the opportunity to make music to overcome personal challenges in their lives.

Mistletoe and Wine became Sir Cliff's 12th number one single when it was released in 1988. It spent four weeks at the top of the UK chart, and sold over 750,000 copies that year. It also secured the 1988 Christmas number one spot. Sir Cliff's other Christmas hits include Saviour's Day and Millenium Prayer.

But maybe you love the song and can’t get enough of it. If that should be the case you can buy it at Amazon and Maybe I’ll make two or three cents. Use the ad link, turn off your blocker to see it. Merry Christmas

Quill Pen How Do You Brighten Up My Day?

You write up a pretty good takedown of the Ebola of Texas known as Rick Perry, and the state of Texas that continually gives refuge to these diseases.  I have no regard for Perry at all, and damn little regard for Texas at all.  Funny how a state that likes to talk about how big they are is the stomping ground for so many backwards thinking small minded politicians and the people who keep them in office.

This entertained me so much, I just had to share.  Here are some highlights but you can read this essay “No Texas Messiah: A Requiem for Rick Perry” in its entirety at Politics USA:

Governor Rick Perry is another in a growing collection of Republican banditti, though one with less personal integrity than his more famous counterpart across the border, Pancho Villa, who at least was fighting for more than personal aggrandizement.

Pancho Villa actually cared about the future of Mexico. Rick Perry cares only about his own future. The United States does not enter into the picture. In the old days, the Texas Rangers would have been hunting Rick Perry down. In today’s Texas, he was their boss.

It must be remembered here that Perry (and this is to take nothing away from Perry’s complete lack of a moral compass) is a symptom of a greater ill: Texas. Under Republican governance, Texas has produced not only Rick Perry, but George W. Bush, and now provides refuge for Allen West, who couldn’t summon sufficient IQ points to qualify as a Floridian.

Texas is also a state in which Perry’s successor as Governor, the equally unethical Greg Abbott, can meet with a “patriot” militia leader (and shake his hand) days before his arrest on weapons charges, and still win election to governor.

And I haven’t even mentioned Rick Perry’s mythical “Texas Miracle” yet: In Two Sentences Team Obama Shatters The Myth Of Rick Perry’s Texas Miracle. That’s right, there is no Texas miracle, unless you’re a corporation, in which case you can blow Texans up with impunity…….


…………That’s right, you can check all the boxes: Rick Perry hates immigrants, hates women, loves himself some Religious Right theocrats, and hates gays. He’s a Republican all right, bona fides confirmed. And that doesn’t even get into his gun infatuation (because everybody needs a grenade launcher)………..

……..at a big speech he forgot what state he was in, or when he said America’s ally, Turkey, is our enemy. Here we had Bachmann fearful of the Soviet Union, two decades gone, and Rick Perry who wants to attack our allies.

And then there was the time Gaffer-in-Chief Rick Perry thought Solyndra was a country. Considering he once wanted to invade Mexico (a dream he shares with fellow GOP border bandit Sheriff Joe Arpaio), Solyndra should be worried……..

………And I’ll just let Rick Perry’s belief that he can pray away drought and other problems speak for itself. The thought of a president who thinks he can pray away problems also speaks for itself.

Perry is leaving center stage now, and thinking about a bigger venue – President of the United States – which is pretty funny because the secessionist tenther once entertained the idea of being President of Texas. Of course, if Texas Republicans get their way, he may still get that chance.

Which would negate my earlier concerns about Santa Anna’s generalship.

But Rick Perry’s ego is bigger than his prospects will ever be. A new bandit has taken his place in Austin, and Perry wants to take his crime spree to the nation’s capital. But stature-wise, Perry is nothing more than a male version of Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann.

As I said, you can read the article in its entirety at Politics USA and it’s well worth your time.  You will be entertained.