Boxing Day Bonanza

by Mark Steyn
Seasons of Steyn
December 26, 2021

https://www.steynonline.com/12009/boxing-day-bonanza

Happy Boxing Day around the British Commonwealth, Happy St Stephen's Day in Europe, and Happy Sunday in America. It is the second day of Christmastide and, because it falls on a weekend, wherever you are and in whatever degree of lockdown, you might be in the mood for a few festive diversions this day. So starting at 7pm Greenwich Mean Time - that's 2pm North American Eastern - I'll be presenting six hours of Boxing Day entertainment drawn from over a quarter-millennium of music, from eighteenth-century 'cello concerti to twenty-first-century state-of-the-art caterwauling.

Important note: Unlike our Clubland Q&A broadcasts, for the benefit of our Asian and Pacific listeners, we're giving this six-hour show an instant repeat starting at 1am GMT, which is a very agreeable 9am Monday for our friends in Western Australia.

At the top of each hour we'll start with an audio edition of my Songs of the Week, with interviews and rare archive material, and then we'll let the music do most of the work at the bottom of the hour, as, among other things, I bid farewell to some of those we lost in 2021, play some songs written in 1921 that are still being sung a hundred years later, and count down a cavalcade of non-stop New Year Number Ones.

There's Adele. But, if you don't like Adele, there's also Beethoven. But, if you don't like Beethoven, there's the Mills Brothers. But, if you don't like the Mills Brothers, there's Rod Stewart. But, if you don't like Rod Stewart, there's the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. But, if you don't like the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, there's Rihanna. If you don't like Rihanna ...well, you get the idea.

So we hope you'll want to swing by, if not for all six hours then to dip in and out. But remember: This is a live presentation, so, if you miss the first airing and the repeat, you may never hear it again for many months or years...

Boxing Day Bonanza is a special production for The Mark Steyn Club. We're not paywalling off SteynOnline or any of that nonsense - and in fact this site now offers more free content than ever before in our nineteen-year history. But Club membership does confer a few benefits, including access to Tales for Our Time, our Sunday Poems and much more.

So see you back here live this afternoon at 2pm North American Eastern Time. That's 3pm in the Canadian Maritimes, half-past-three in Newfoundland - and, beyond the Americas, 7pm in London and Dublin; 8pm in Paris and Berlin; 9pm in Kiev; 10pm in Moscow; half-past-ten in Tehran, for all you Newfoundlanders who move to Iran for the half-hour time zone; three-quarters past midnight in Kathmandu, for all you Iranians who move to Nepal to check out the quarter-hour time zone; 3am in Singapore, Honkers and Western Australia (sorry about that); 4am in Sydney and Melbourne, and a marginally less uncivilized hour for the kippers and kedgeree in Auckland and beyond.

But no worries - because the whole extravaganza repeats at 1am Greenwich Mean Time, which is 9am in Singapore, 10am in Sydney, so it's perfect Christmas Bank Holiday Monday brunch listening.

But, whatever hour it is where you are, we do hope you'll be able to join us. To listen to the livestream, simply click the "play" icon on the audio player (in certain browsers, the audio will start auto-playing).

On December 26, 2021 at 2:46 pm, Jan Schiebout wrote:

Dickensonian Christmastide Greetings, Mark , to you and yours, and to all the fellow club members past, present and future! If anyone is hanging on the membership fence, now is the time to let go and land on the lush green of membership, from which springs an ever increasing bounty.
Mark, I was especially grateful for your interview on GBNews of William Pearson-Gee. His interview would never be allowed on American television, even on Tucker Carlson. The very God that was behind the Mayflower Compact has been relegated by the communist left and compliant right to the character status of JK Rowling's Voldemort, because we dare not speak His name. Funny thing about God: He doesn't make you believe in Him, and if you keep kicking Him out of everything, He will leave. Everything Paul writes in Romans 1:18 and continues on into the second chapter should terrify us, and may be what is happening now. Take heart, however: not all American churches are taking a knee to the state. Jack Hibbs of the Calvary Church in Chino Hills California refused to close and has been an inspiration to Christians everywhere. We wish we had a pastor with his courage and faith. He has been blessed with increasing the rolls of the faithful, and spreading the faith internationally. Remarkable! The denominations have ruined Christianity, and the churches are empty because God has left the building. The Pope thinks Allah and God are one and the same and wants to baptize an alien. Apostasy.
And as usual, no one is talking abut anything important, as you've said continually for years.

Thank you for keeping our feet on the ground. Just one question: what kind of beer are you sipping on "Talking Pints"? Irish or English? To my eye it could be a Guinness Stout, or a British Brown Ale. Bet the brewers are lining up to volunteer to supply it for a plug. Now that would be a capitalist idea!

All the best in the New Year,

Jan Schiebout

On December 26, 2021 at 3:16 pm, Dan Phillips Venice, Florida wrote:

Sitting here and totally enjoying your extended program on Boxing Day...which day I've never considered enjoying qua Boxing Day; no, not in my entire life. But here I am with mellifluous Dino singing "If You Were the Only Girl in the World..."...does it get any better? And with such a poignant historical backdrop to boot!
What a tonic for a totally depraved political environment.
Best Regards!
Too bad this lovely special program cannot be catalogued with the rest of your output.
I think many would love to listen to it "on demand".

On December 26, 2021 at 3:42 pm, Gail Rothesay wrote:

Simply loving this musical interlude - carrying you around the house while puttering, tidying and dipping into Christmas treats. Of which this programme is the best treat of any. Mark, your energy and new offerings delight and amaze me. A joyful remainder of Christmas days to you and all the club.

On December 26, 2021 at 3:45 pm, Nicola Timmerman wrote:

Some of those classic songs remind me of Sunday brunches with music in New York City. Won't go back as it would ruin my memories as it did for you for San Francisco.

My 'kids' tested negative for covid so we had a great Christmas Day supper and finished with a great buche. Then charades and guess the hummed tune, but not blind man's bluff or other games described by Washington Irving in your Christmas tales.

Hello to Club members all over the world!

On December 26, 2021 at 4:20 pm, Dale Owens wrote:

Dear Mark,
Thanks for the veritable cornucopia of reflections and entertainment over Christmas. Who on earth would waste time on the boring BBC when all this is on offer?
All the best to you and all club members!
Dale Owens, a Welshman living near Milan, Italy.

On December 26, 2021 at 4:54 pm, Christopher Gelber wrote:

What a lovely way to spend this evening. Thank you, Mark and production crew, however many of you there be. I wondered why I love even those bits which don't resonate for me, and of course chief among the many-fold answers is that you are true to yourself. Which means the shows - all of them - have a real internal coherence. The great rock and roll artists have that too: the Stones, Who, Zep ... I'll never stop trying to persuade you rock isn't all crap. But I will never stop learning, including from you, about so much ... Which is as it should be. It's grand to be a member of this Club. And I second Nicola's hello to all.

On December 26, 2021 at 5:08 pm, John Barrett wrote:

Hi Mark, We're enjoying this "variety" show - a nice way to relax on a Sunday afternoon.
All the best to you and yours this coming year.
John

On December 26, 2021 at 5:39 pm, Dale Owens wrote:

Yes, I have been listening to the Test Match Special commentary from Australia and even that once hallowed institution seems to have gone to the dogs. Bland and boring. It has even been infected by political correctness...
Dale Owens

On December 26, 2021 at 5:54 pm, Wanda Sherratt wrote:

For some reason, I'm finding this Christmas a lot of fun. Compared to last Christmas, which was accompanied by lots of trepidation on whether we'd be "allowed" to celebrate, this year people seem to have tuned out the authorities and are no longer concerned about how much gruel they mean to measure out to us. I've been catching up on some of the Christmas Tales for our Time, which I tended to skip in years past. Right now I'm at the point where the Ghost of Christmas Future appears to Scrooge, but I was very touched by the description of the scenes visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present. It was all the happy crowd scenes, so enthusiastically described by Dickens, which made me feel how miserly our current rulers are. The colours, the warmth, the laughter, the huge groups of people happily surging about outside and greeting each other inside - maybe it was heightened for effect by the author, but the book couldn't have been successful if the readers of the time hadn't felt that he was conveying something truthful about their time and experience.

On December 26, 2021 at 6:07 pm, Jan Schiebout wrote:

This music is such a sweet surprise: "Ain't necessarily so" following a Celtic ballad penny whistle ballad. I was not aware we had lost a couple of the artists. Sondheim and Sinatra. What can top that? I don't dare leave the room again -

On December 26, 2021 at 6:08 pm, Lynn Foster wrote:

Mark, I am really enjoying this Boxing Day Special, so much fun specially since I have struggled with " appointment radio" since Sunday usually sees me in the saddle on my horse....and and your Christmas Eve presentation for those of us who still observe a modicum of old time Christianity was calming and comforting...I feel refreshed and ready to fight on....even got my PAL this fall so looking forward to a trip to the renowned Elwood Epps Sporting Goods Store up on HWY 11 where I shall be rewarding myself for getting thru 2021 with a suitable firearm....all in all 2022 looks good.

On December 26, 2021 at 10:17 pm, Robert wrote:

Mark,

Really enjoying this special! I do have a request, though.
There's a twenty-two hour youtube where you can listen to all of H P Lovecraft's original Cthulhu Mythos stories in order (google "Horror Babble").

Would really like to hear the parts I've had to miss! Any chance of a six-hour YouTube?

On December 27, 2021 at 12:31 am, James Laurie wrote:

Stephen Sondheim, God rest his soul, was a great lyricist! Composer, not so much. In particular, "Send In The Clowns." As a musician I found the melodic structure insufferable. Just had to get it off my chest.

Thanks for the rest of the Boxer Day show, Mark.

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