Programming note: Join Mark tomorrow, Saturday, for another edition of his Serenade Radio show, On the Town. The fun starts at 5pm Greenwich Mean Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe/12 midday North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
With that out of the way and just ahead of Episode Eight of our current Tale for Our Time, a word to the wise:
As Mark predicted four years ago, before America's laughably misnamed "election" of 2020, things have cratered very fast on the free-speech front - in Canada, Australia, Europe, the United States and, most disgracefully of all, in the United Kingdom, where, under an evil and ever more brazenly authoritarian government, you'll get more prison time for a Facebook post than for raping a child. Meanwhile, in Brussels the commissars threaten to ban Twitter from the entirety of the EU because its proprietor conducted an interview with the now incoming President of the United States.
In such a world, we thank all of you who swing by the Steyn shingle as part of your daily rounds. As he has often said, Mark so misses the Internet of yore and the heyday of independent websites in the early years of this century - before the woketalitarians seized control and corralled everyone into a handful of easy-to-police "platforms". Despite the heartening results of November's election, all prudent persons should remain full of foreboding about what lies ahead - and our shrinking freedom to talk about anything honestly. The last-photocopier-in-the-woods scenario gets closer every day - although we'll have to move it every night to avoid getting droned.
We're particularly touched in such an environment by your kind comments about our content here, including this latest audio adventure, written in 1937 and the first of this year's slate of Christmas entertainments. Paul Cathey, a Colorado member of The Mark Steyn Club, writes:
I appreciate very much the effort you put into the characters of the tales, Mark. Sustaining the accent of, say, 'Mr. Smith,' in the present tale, must require a great deal of effort, which I'm sure is exacerbated by your present health difficulties. That said, it comes off as easily done and bespeaks a natural affinity for the theater. For sheer listening pleasure the only parallel I can draw is that of Uncle Bill in the Tales From Big Wood. You are a master. Thank you for this.
Thank you, Paul. In tonight's episode of Mystery in White, Lydia is determined to jolly a snowbound and not terribly compatible house party into an appropriately festive Christmas:
"I think I ought to do something," replied Mr. Hopkins.
"You can and you shall. You and Mr. Smith can lay tables and so on."
"Yes, that's right, I'll be the butler!" exclaimed Mr. Hopkins, with sudden enthusiasm. "That's the idea. Carry trays up to the invalids——"
"You can carry Mr. Thomson's tray up," said Lydia curtly. "And that, Mr. Maltby, leaves you free to play the part of Father Christmas!"
"I am afraid I should make a very poor Father Christmas, Miss Carrington," answered the old man.
What to do? Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear Mark read Episode Eight by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier instalments of Mystery in White can be found here - and, if your tastes incline to the more obviously brutal, Steyn's serialisation of Nineteen Eighty-Four starts here.
Thank you again for all your comments, thumbs up or down, on this latest tale. Very much appreciated. If you'd like to know more about The Mark Steyn Club, please click here - and don't forget, for fellow fans of classic fiction and/or poetry, our Steyn Club Gift Membership.
Mark will see you back here tomorrow for Part Nine of Mystery in White.
