Xmas Critique. By Uncle Monty.

Xmas Critique. By Uncle Monty.

YouTube Video By

Richard van den Boogaard.

Xmas Photos By Alex Albion.
...
Richard van den Boogaard's "Merry Christmas London

2009" appears via his YouTube video, on this Christmas

Morn, with myself finally getting 15 seconds of "fame"

of some sorts for all the world to see me on ...
.
YouTube:

www.youtube.com/brandedchannels

...

I must say that Richard van den Boogaard's YouTube

presentation of Christmas in London 2009 is a "jingle bells"

kind of piece that he has done rather nicely,videographic-

ally and, of course, with much of a xmasy dose.

...
London's St. Martin-in-the-Fields Carollers.

...
Lone Scotsman outside London's Charing Cross Station.

While on my way to London's Charing Cross underground

to participate in the annual carol singing to raise funds for the
Connections homeless centre at St Martin-in-the-Fields, I
saw the lone pictured Scotsman playing somewhat plaintive-
ly at the outside of the CX station. I couldn't resist giving him

a quid or two as I listened to his bagpipe music of Yuletide.
Inside the station there was the St. Martin's carol singers
with Roger Shaljean in charge. I got a charity bucket to

collect whatever I could for the homeless centre, which is

quietly Anglican without public fanfare. Roger seemed rather
aloof, I must say. When I went to shake his hand to say
"goodbye" at the end of the carol singing he failed to
look and to shake my hand as if I wasn't even there.

...
Then there was dear "Pooh," who for years has sang at St. Martin's

and who plays the Xmas tambourine, telling me her vexing story of

how she'd bought from a Big Issue vendor the current Paul Mc-

Cartney Christmas issue only to later find the female vendor had

cunning slipped in her shopping bag an outdated copy of an August

back issue instead of the Xmas one she'd happily paid for. The same

vendor had also demanded 10 quid from "Pooh," a retired lady

and devout Anglican, telling her she needed the money to help

feed her baby or something like that. Big Issue's Paul Joseph

called Pooh back and she said he apologised and was so nice.

I asked Pooh, if she thought the vendor was a Romanian

or an Eastern European foreigner?

"Probably so," answered Pooh.
...
Uncle Monty with a lovely St. Martin carol singer.

...
Richard is a regular St. Martin's carol

singer who shows his old fashioned love
for Father Christmas, too! Bravo!!

...
Two of Uncle Monty's Café Nero buddies - Robin and

Nicola - on Christmas Eve as they enscribed their Xmas

messages to him on the large cup of piping Hot Chocolate!!

So nice of them, I say ...

...

Fabulous was Xmas Eve for me with last minute Xmas folkz stopping to buy my Big Issue that totalled around 120 sold copies of mine. My big green jacket pockets were almost full of 1 and 2 quid coins, although I had my wheelie bag ready to also fill up with whatever coins the Covent Garden shoppers may have decided to give me more. On the whole, however, it was the quietest Xmas Eve I have ever seen in my past five there. When I counted all my change - with also a few but rare big quid banknotes - I tallied almost £350 for my Xmas Eve! Bravo! I manned my pitch from 7.00am to 6.00pm despite the earlier rain and the all day gray overcast sky that always makes London so dreary and especially on times like Xmas Eve. Yet even though I did okay, many Big Issue vendors didn't see much of a Christmas for them with poor sales and even poorer giving by the shoppers and visitors to Covent Garden over the past week leading up to Christmas Day, 2oo9. When I tallied what I had taken over my 28-day period of Xmas sales, I had taken £1,781 in all. That's stated not to brag but to tell you of what took place. While that is pretty good, it was poor compared to pervious Xmas takings I have at my Big Issue pitch. This year I didn't see the huge single donations - except for Jan Mol's usual and kind £150.00 donation to me - but rather alot more quids of small 1's and 2's. Of course, if one gets the volume of such, then it can soon amount to a tidy bit of welcome cash. Such helped to save my Christmas, if not my spirit or our Broken Christmas at Broken Britain of today ...
...
While overall, I still saw thousands upon thousands of
folks in London who refused to even give a dime at
Christmastide to Big Issue vendors. I also saw foreign
visitors galore, those cagy Orientals - Japanese,
Chinese, Koreans - by the busloads; along with those
god damn imposed Africans and menacing Muslims
upon us, who will not give a red cent let alone a word
of good cheer to those vendors trying to make a little
something over the Xmas period. For many vendors,
they just quit trying to do Christmas on the streets of
London. Many more head to CRISIS to spend Xmas
there with their fellow homeless and the vunerable.
Christmas is a cruel time for all too many people.

.

Out of luck, on the streets ...

By Steve Bird.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article6966905.ece

...
Yes, Richard van den Boogaard's Christmas "jingle

bells" on YouTube is all fine and dandy, but the reality

of Christmas in London isn't music to the ears of the
elderly, the lonely, the sick, the poor, the rejected, the
unloved, the homeless, the disrespected, the redundant,
the bereaved, the abused, the familyless, the marginal-
ized, and society's castoffs. Christmas for them isn't jingle

bells, it's simply living hell on earth!! The immaculate birth

of Christ Jesus is as remote to them as flying to the moon.

Sad, but true ... But if they embrace Him, then humankind's

earthly "Christmas" is basically trivial and nothing to have

missed or even to fret about with all the shopping bags and

obligatory Xmas gifts that amount to human gratification

and not the glorification to or for Him. That's why Christ-

mas is a kind of hell for many because we've grafted

commercialism and consumerism on humans among the

jingle bells of modern and meaningless Christmas. Once

things become less important in one's life, then the

celebration of the The Prince of Peace and The King of

Kings transcends our plastic ideal of Christmas that has

become more and more Christless in Broken Britain

with non-believers of every kinds now killing all that is

good and great about Christianity and The Nativitiy

of Him. Nobody, and no thing, comes close to the

holy birth of Our Only Lord and Saviour. Amen.
...

Some folks pray to see the end of Xmas for it brings no

joy, but pure pain, deep sadness and sheer emptiness.

It shouldn't be like that! Therefore, embrace Him.
...
Inside Café Nero with a bunch of Spanish
kidz visiting London at Christmas Eve, 2oo9.

...
Videographer Richard van den Boogaard at
Uncle Monty's Big Issue pitch a week or
so before Christmas Eve, 2oo9.

http://www.youtube.com/brandedchannels
...

:: Feedback From America ::
Dear Monty, So good to hear from you, and to see your smiling face on YouTube. You look very well! Thank you for the Christmas greetings. Here in Northern California, in the mountains, we had a beautiful day. We spent it with family and friends, definitely the way to go. Had dinner with Heidi and Jim (Johnson) - you remember our Heidi? - the other evening. Hope you stay cozy and warm, and that the Nero folks keep you well-supplied with Orangina and coffee. Best wishes, Susan (Prince) . Re: UNCLE MONTY on Youtube this Xmas Day ... Date: Sat 12/26/09 04:38 PM.

...
The story caption photo is of Uncle Monty at his pitch with old friend Jan Mol's 7 lovely grandchildren visiting London from The Netherlands for Christmas while staying with their grand dad at Theatreland.

What else can I say, except "A MERRY CHRISTMAS" TO YOU!!

Uncle Monty. +Christmas Day, 2oo9.

~ Click on any image to Enlarge ~

Season's Greetings From Shambani. By Harry Atkins.

Season's Greetings From Shambani.

By Harry Atkins.
.+.
Dear Monty,

What is the collective noun for Kangaroos? I wonder.

I suggest a thump of kangaroos. I/We all hope that life

is going well for you. I'm not much good on my lap top

so I do not follow your colourful blogs.

.+.

Summer has come but we have a fair amount of water

stored. I wonder if you have been on any adventure

since we last saw you (in London last September).

.+.

Advent - how I loved that season as a child.

Perhaps you will be carol-singing at this season.

We hope that Christmas is cosy and peaceful.

.+.

Best wishes, Myrna, Harry, Rosalind and Perry.

Shambani, Mt. Barker, South Australia.

Dec. 11. 2009.

.+.

I received the above Christmas card message from my

dear friend and author Harry Atkins and his lovely wife

Myrna along with their family at Shambani, via Australian

Mail, on the Eve Before Christmas Eve at London, UK.

.+.

Harry is a devout Welsh Anglican and retired Kenya

schoolmaster and delightful Myrna is a Welsh Presbyterian.

Their daughter Rosalind is a registered nurse and her fine

husband Perry is a gym instructor. Shambani is located at

remote Mt. Barker in the wonderful Adelaide Hills at where

nature and animal-loving - horses, dogs, sheep, cats, and

of course, visiting kangaroos - are held in supreme respect

at the hobby farm of Shambani.

.+.

I shall always remember my stay there and hope that

one day I may return to such an earthly paradise that it

resembles so much for me in so many charming ways!

I happily send my best Christmas greetings to all at

Shambani and to all those good folkz and the eye-catching

kangaroos among South Australia's Adelaide Hills ...

Very truly, Uncle Monty.

+Eve Before Christmas Eve, 2oo9.
.

The above caption image of the Kangaroos is taken from the

actual Australian Xmas card sent to me by the Shambani folkz!

.
Some Xmas Gifts For Uncle Monty ...

and some nice cash inside Xmas cards!!

.+.

Shambani.

http://www.wiewerdeich.info/shambani

.

SHAMBANI REVISITED.

By Uncle Monty.

http://thebiggerissueorg.blogspot.com/2008/12/shambani-revisited-by-uncle-monty.html

.

.

{Click on any image to Enlarge}

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Broken Christmas At Broken Britain. By Uncle Monty.

Broken Christmas At Broken Britain.

By Uncle Monty.

Rudolph Photo By Alex Albion.
***
For many older folkz like me, the English Christmas of
today has become close to empty and almost meaningless
for many of us. We can hardly even say “Merry Christmas”
thesedays without the fear of being corrected and told to
say “Festive” or "Mid-Winter Celebration,” instead of
saying, like we always have of old, “A Merry Christmas.”
Nor can we decorate our Christmases like the past with-
out the mindless ranters of those who care more for the
religious or non-religious feelings of others, than

for Christian folks like us.
***

Tinsel Taliban strikes as Court Service
ban staff from decorations to avoid offence.
By Daniel Martin.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236989/Tinsel-Taliban-strikes-Court-Service-ban-staff-decorations-avoid-offence.html

[The UK Court Service, by the way, is now packed with
immigrant-born and foreign-born court judges and employees,
just like is H.M. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) with their huge
legal staff that New Labour has deliberately installed at all levels
of the British legal system over the past decade or so. Thus, such
helps to explain the reason behind the ban of English Christmas
decorations at where such non-believers, immigrant-born and

foreign-born staffers overwhelmingly tread!! They're another

reason why "Broken Christmas At Broken Britain" has become

so evident thesedays. We must always say "Ramadan," but

we're almost castigated for say "Christmas" as Christians now

in our own growing darkey and broken British society ...]
***

What we also see is how the secular, commercial, and
consumer forces have deliberately diluted the religious
meaning and the traditonal essense of Christmas forever
and, of course, for the worse. Many older people feel
Christmas has been hijacked in Britain for the sake
of greedy profits by godless profiteers and
anti-Christian heathens.

***
Late-19th Century English Family Christmas.

***

A clear sign of the broken times we're living in is

seen inside Broken Britain at this Christmastide

by the demand for special ambulances to treat ex-

treme binge-drinking by pre-teens to regular drunks

of the age forty something. Making merry was once

harmless fun with a drink or two here and there, but

no longer. Broken Christmas cries out loud with broken

people who wreak havoc where ever they go with their

dizzy hours of compulsive binge-drinking of just about

any kind of booze they can afford to lay their hands on.

Britian's "Nanny State" insists then on treating such people

at no cost to such bingers and drunks with free treatment

given of such foul people on the streets of London, and

around the country, at all hours of the day and night,

but most especially during the Christmas and New Year

period. Street violence and random muggings are now

part of the fallout from the binge-drinking culture of

Broken Britain. Bingers and drunks become easy prey

for the vile street muggers, roadside criminals, and

animalistic thugs that openly prowl without fear of

being caught or punished.

***

Look also at the London store windows and see the

tacky and piecemeal Christmas decorations that seem

almost done as a token rather than any desire to expr-

ess Christmas joy and goodwill. Covent Garden and the

West End brand name stores were once truly tasteful

and elaborate with Christmas decorations, and even

Christmas scenes, proudly displayed for all to see.

Now, the quicker they can get the cheap decorations

up and taken down, the better for the stores that no

longer want to spend time or money on doing fine

Christmas decorations. Plus, even the street Xmas

decorations border more and more on the secular and

non-religious depiction of Christmas that are almost

meaningless to the eye or mind. Such again symboli-

zes "Broken Christmas at Broken Britain," yet again.

***

English Xmas Postcard of 1950's.

***
And while news reports of this year's emerging
vogue of so-called traditional or "Heritage Christmas"
having come into play with recreating some of the old
Yudetide events of the past around the UK, the fact
still remains that all around us we see little more than
"Broken Christmas at Broken Britain" of today compared
certainly to Christmases now past of our present lifetime.
Indeed, the heritage Christmas is a direct result of
today's modern broken Christmas.
***
"Traditional Christmas is back in style. Past trumps
the present as Britons revive old celebrations."

By Vanessa Thorpe and Jamie Doward.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/20/traditions-christmas-religion

***

Aside from that, what makes Christmas broken is the

prevailing broken spirit and broken message of

Christmas for millions who claim to be Christians and

who seem to have forgotten that Christmas wouldn't

exist without the extraordinary birth of Jesus!! They

deny His magical presence and the reason why we first

celebrate Christmastide because of His Holy Name.

Instead, many have gotten caught-up in the secular and

consumer mechanics of Christmas over the spiritual and

emotional faith that has died in the souls and minds of

the people at this "Broken Christmas at Broken Britain."

***

'Sharp decline' in faith as number of Christians

in Britain falls to half.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236267/Sharp-decline-faith-number-Christians-Britain-falls-half.html

***
Victoriana Christmas Magazine Cover of 1860's.

***

Standing on the freezing streets of London best gives

insight in the modern Broken Christmas as masses go

by and completely ignore Big Issue street vendors

trying to make alittle bit extra at this Christmastide.

The more Xmas shopping bags the individual has, the

more likely he or she will not stop and give alittle of

their riches to the homeless vendor. As the masses

walk on by, look at their hearts of concrete, their

eyes blind, their mouths sealed, their humanity

shuttered, their minds closed, their spirit dead,

and their souls lost. And brutally cold and im-

personal are they that have not been taught the

lesson of giving, especially at Christmas to those

who have the least. Lack of compassion for others

is what also produces today's "Broken

Christmas at Broken Britain."

***

Classic English Christmas Card of 1920's.

***

American Christmas Card of 1910's.

***

My Christmas Greetings, Uncle Monty.
+Last Sunday in Advent, 2oo9.

+Vigil of St. Thomas The Apostle, 2oo9.

Five Days To Christmas, 2oo9.

Eve of the Shortest Day of the Year, 2oo9.

.

Here's more of what I have to say about our

"Broken Christmas at Broken Britain" :-

Many London Councils, like the vicious Westminster Council,

now refuse to even recognise Boxing Day – the day after

Christmas Day in the UK – in order to impose traffic tickets

and fines on unsuspecting Christmas folks who park to visit

and shop at Covent Garden and the West End still thinking

it's free parking on Boxing Day. Such councils are close to

mafioso -in their lawless greed to extract every penny

they can by means of their tyrannical enforcement against

motorists who fall foul of their wicked parking rules that

are primarily designed with only one thing in mind - to

get more money from the motoring public by almost

any dirty trick or cunning means. To such councils,

they're saying to "hell with goodwill at Christmas!"

Godless greed is their motto and their vicious existence

inside Broken Britain ... How horrid!! They always im-

pose grief on the public with their mindless traffic

wardens who are basically the dregs of society.

.

Parking Goldmine lures fat cat enforcers

to Westminister. By Simon English.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23777530-parking-goldmine-lures-fat-cat-enforcer-to-westminster.do

***

Another sad example of "Broken Christmas at Broken Britain"
is the cold 600-word Big Issue piece entitled “Don’t screw us in

2010” by the one and only editor-in-chief John Bird. What a cold

unChristmas -message he wrote and published with only one

word of his that used the word “Christmas,” and only once, in

the last of the 2009 so-called Festive Issues of his with Paul

McCartney headlining the mag’s Christmas Interview. To

read John Bird’s utterly self-centred piece was like Christ-

mas doesn't even exist in his own unfeeling “Bird’s Eye

View.” How pathetic and how pitiful was his own empty

"Xmas" message!! Screw the messenger next, yep?
***

Irish Christmas Postcard, circa 1900.

***

Christmas: A Brief History.
It's Christmas time again, with trees, gifts and Santa

Claus. But how did we come to celebrate the birth of Jesus

Christ how and when we do? We take a look at some

key points in the history of Yuletide.
By Tom Chivers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/6811346/Christmas-a-brief-history.html?utm_source=tmg&utm_medium=TD_history&utm_campaign=christmas1612am
***

.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! From Uncle Monty.

:: MERRY CHRISTMAS ::

From Uncle Monty

&

thebiggerissue.org
...
Tony Robinson, 63, pictured, is the British actor

and broadcaster of note. He remembers those

Christmases now past, I am sure. I encountered

him yesterday at his film location off London's

Drury Lane. Nice guy, I must say ... Although

one of my lady friends promptly described

him as an "irritating little man!"

...

But best of all from yesterday was Little

Arabella at age 2. She sparked Christmas joy

in me for one brief shining moment. When

she was gone, my sense of Christmas

faded all so rapidly, I must say ...

...

.

.

(Click on any image to Enlarge)

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TIGER WOODS: The Rise & Fall of The One & Only Cablinasian. By Uncle Monty.

TIGER WOODS:

The Rise & Fall of The

One & Only Cablinasian.

By Uncle Monty.

Graphics By Alex Albion.

---
Born out of interracial wedlock of an African-American
male and an Asian female, world golfer Tiger Woods, 33,

was hailed as a model of lily cleanliness and capitalistic

success, both on and off the world’s golf courses, until

his hitherto unpublicized sexual philanderings and con-

suming fornification was recently exposed and laid bare

for all the world to see him for what he really is. For he

is little more than a sex fiend at the drop of a hat and

who doesn't seem to know how to keep his filthy hands

to himself when it comes to casual sex with at least 12

slobbering white women outside of his marriage.

---

Married to a white female European, Tiger Woods has

produced two kids from his 2004 marriage that is also

the product of yet another strain and mix of interracial

wedlock. Now his marriage looks like it’s on the rocks,

or between a rock and a hard place, after those white

women have variously offered their kiss and tell

stories about Woods' sex life to the world's tabloids

like America's "National Enquirer" and the

UK's "News of the World."
---
It's All Finished, Baby!!

---
Aside from being a sex fiend, Tiger Woods says he's

a "Cablinasian.” What? Did he say "Cablinasian" for

real? ? Yes, he most certainly did! So what’s this new

word and thing called “Cablinasian,” you may well ask!

Well, it’s what Tiger Woods repeatedly calls himself!

It means according to him he comes from a racial mix-

ture of “Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian,”

to quote columnist Ephraim Hardcastle's succinct

definition of Wood’s claim of being a Cablinasian.

Oh, Tiger Woods is also the world's one and only

Cablinasian Billionaire. And the first of its kind! But,

even that odd status he may very well soon lose ...

---
And what about his kids?

Are they then "Euro-Cablinasians," simply because

their mom is a Swede married to a Cablinasian? And what

if those kids of their’s eventually marry yet another racial

strain of perhaps say pygmy or latino or aboriginal? I

dread to think! Like Tiger Woods, Barrack Obama is also a

product of interracial wedlock of a black African father and

a white Kansian mother in Obama's case. I see interracial

wedlock is now ripe and rife in such Caucasian countries as

the USA and, most especially, in today's hideous multiracial

dictates of the UK. Mixed race marriages are ruining the

English race from almost recognition as Anglo-Saxons.

---
Although I personally think such should be outlawed or

curtained at the very least, I loathe seeing interracial
couples producing kids that don't know if they're white

or black or yellow or red or brown or something in bet-

ween. Nor do such mixed race kids know if say they’re

Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim or again something

in between. Interracial pairing produces mongrels, much

like dogs do, between themselves and so being pure bred

is becoming rarer by the day. The more sexually decadent

is a society, much like England, the more interracial dating

and courting goes on unabatedly and sickeningly thrives

with or without eventual wedlock. There won’t be a white

Briton left at the rate the country is producing mixed race

off-spings like ravishing rabbits with one in ten families in

the UK now of mixed race progeny. Furthermore, the

British state school system, especially in urban London,

is overwhelmed by mixed race infant and primary

school male and female pupils of the like never before

seen in the British Isles until vile New Labour began

its deliberate onslaught of mass immigration from the

Third World to Caucasian England at the behest of

Labour's abusive and socialist power of the past dec-

ade. Sex crazy Africans by nature will have sex with

almost any other race and such is evidenced by the

huge number of 21st century kids in Britain who dis-

play their half-mixed race and breed due entirely

to having an African male father or an African

female mother.

---

As for so-called Cablinasains of Tiger Woods' blood-

line, I suspect few if any exist other than him and his

kids. Thank God!! Although one bogus college in Lon-

don just bragged that it had foreign and immigrant

students from 85 nations on its class rolls. So maybe

there is a Cablinasian among them? Other than that,

how awful to have 85 nationalities in just one college

which shows how multiculturalism and multiracialism

has now gone completely mad inside the UK! Such is

beyond all good reason, except for the political and

leftist agenda of Britain's foul Labour Party that at

present holds its "red stranglehold" on Broken Britain.

Something needs to also be done to help stop the

interracial subculture from becoming more and

more the majority culture inside England and

else where across Europe and even in certain

race enclaves of America.
---

---
As for the sex problem of Tiger Woods', he has now lost

his resounding status as a wholesome and international

sports figure to millions of his golf fans of both the young

and the old. His commercial endorsements also seem

pretty shaky after all that has been revealed about his

extramarital sex flings. Worse still for him, he stands to

lose huge millions of dollars has the fallout of his moral

depravity still comes crashing down relentlessly upon

him. He's now a forever fallen golf sports hero. He is

unlikely to fully recover both on and off the fairway.

He's lost his best shot of his good life all because of his

sex flings being of his own heterosexual undoings and

not because of any flaws with his superb talent

and mastery of top pro golf.

---

So I rudely show the woman below as a white female

for a Cablinasian sex fiend like is Tiger Woods to have

perhaps another quick sex fling before he is rightly

divorced outright by his own ex-loving wife. She has

every right to tell him to go to hell and back as she

prepares to find a new life outside of her crumbling

marriage to the world's No. 1 golfer, who isn't such a

nice, clean, guy after all. No wonder our kids scoff at

what they see so many of their grownups do!! And

thus - "TIGER WOODS: The Rise & Fall of The

One & Only Cablinasian" - has now come to pass

so ungloriously for him at no matter what may

personally happen next for him ...

---

TigerCrashGate.

Tiger Woods in the news: tabloid revelations and blind eyes
By Jay Busbee.

---

Child protection team visit Tiger Woods's home as spon-

sors abandon scandal-plagued golfer. By David Gardner.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1235448/Tiger-Woods-wife-end-marriage-Christmas.html#ixzz0ZdmIC2Ts
---

How About Her For A

Nice Sex Fling, Mr. Woods?

---
Disgusted with Tiger, Uncle Monty.

3rd Sunday in Advent, 2oo9.

.

NB. Tiger's surname is given both as Woods

and Wood in news reports by the world news

media. I've mainly used Woods as his surname,

and sometimes Wood in photographic write

overs, for this blog story of mine about him.

---

And, Here's Yet Another New Labour Shocker ...

"Single mother of eight living in a £2.6m mansion -

so much for Labour's housing benefit crackdown."
By Emily Andrews.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235604/Single-mother-living-2-6m-mansion--Labours-housing-benefit-crackdown.html#ixzz0ZdnUjlN6
.

.
(Click on any image to Enlarge)

.

TCWNN's Homeless Xmas Special. By Uncle Monty.

TCWNN's Homeless Xmas Special.

By Uncle Monty.

TCWNN Photos By Alex Albion.
**
Packed from wall-to-wall at London’s Only Connect
Theatre, the paying and supportive audience either sat

or stood in open awe and wrapt attention at the Xmas

Special of The Choir With No Name (TCWNN). Such

brought so much good tidings and great joy to one and

all of those so lucky enough to be present at the very

special homeless and seasonal event that was solidly

sold out long before last night's prime performance.
**

TCWNN's Duet & Full Choir.

**

And, for one brief shining moment there was

CHRISTMAS like it should always be as the 30-strong

homeless members of The Choir With No Name, or

TCWNN, gave their best renditions of traditional and

modern Christmas songs and seasonal musical fayre.

**
No Name Choir Member!

**

"I wish it could be Christmas every day," they

sang in pure harmony as the audience hummed

along in sheer Christmas delight! "Well I wish it

could be Christmas every day. When the kids start

singing and the band begins to play. Oh, I wish it could

be Christmas every day. Let the bells ring out for

Christmas," so the good choir sang so joyously

and out loud for us all to hear so proudly!!

**

TCWNN's Richard, 61.

**

Oh yes, with The Choir With No Name was

also The Band With No Name (TBWNN) that

saw talented keyboard player Adam Gray

(shown below) give of his best along with

his band mates Ben Reed, bass guitar; and

Jamie Crawford on drums. The combination of

the choir and band was like "sugar and spice and

all things nice" despite their insistence of having

"no names." Of course, their names are by

simply calling themselves "no names."

**

Thank goodness, however, Christmas does have a

beloved name. Although for some, "Christmas With

No Name" is how they want to treat such. But not so

by the all the guyz and galz present at the TCWNN

and TBWNN Xmas Special held at King's Cross.

They all seemed to love Christmas they did,

with or without a given name ...

**

At TBWNN's keyboard is talented Adam Gray.

**

She founded TCWNN did Marie Benton just 18 months

ago while she was also working in "the role of campaigns

and communications manager at the London-based home-

lessness charity of St Mungo's." Earlier, she had worked with

national Down's Syndrome Association. The rationale behind

Marie's concept of starting a homeless choir was simple - to

offer a positive distraction for homeless people from their life

on the edge of society. She's be very successful at doing that

in a very short time of the choir's existence with the name

"The Choir With No Name" coming about by accident has she

stated the choir had no name. A few weeks later, the choir

members voted overwhelmingly to stay with the unintended

name and so TCWNN was officially its name. The choir's

odd name has now struck, too.

**

Every Monday night, Marie and her devout and loyal

choir members gather for rehearsals at the Only Connect

Theatre and there they are fed a good, wholesome meal,

after they have rehearsed. "They sing pop, rock, soul,

gospel, reggae, musicals ... you name it, they'll give it a

go," stated the 8-page 2009 Christmas programme. It

should now add, too, that TCWNN also sings Xmas

songs and melodies as part of its growing repertoire.

To pay just 10 quid to hear and see them was the best

Christmas bargain in Olde London Towne! For me, I

was delighted that Marie issued me a complimentary

ticket to attend the wonderful event that I personally

was made so overjoyed by what I saw and heard at

last night's Xmas Special. One other thing about Marie

is her demonstrative conducting of the choir that adds

zest and character to the whole performance from be-

ginning to end. The way she twirls, twists and turns,

is something to behold for the roundly rythmetic

and hypnotic style that she candidly displays.

http://choirwithnoname.org/

**

Two Lovelies Before TCWNN's Xmas Special.

**
But above all, last night's TCWNN's Homeless Xmas

Special was so worthy of being given an outstanding

prize for its great performance that hopefully will

come one day soon to The Choir With No Name.

Christmas wishes and kudos then to all who are in-

volved with TCWNN. They each deserve an award

of merit for what they have already done and

achieved as England's premier homeless choir.

BRAVO!!!

**
Happily, Uncle Monty.

+Happy Hanukkah, 2009.

:: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah#Hanukkah_rituals ::
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