Welcome to Christmas Week at SteynOnline. The season of peace on earth and goodwill to all men is now the prime target (as we discovered in Germany on Friday) of many of the "high-value immigrants" a depraved political class has invited into western nations.
So, for the next two nights, I thought we'd revisit an ever timelier short story of mine that I rattled off seven years ago one morning in my hotel while visiting New York for a spot of Tucker and Rush hosting.
One of the demoralizing aspects of spending that supposedly festive week in midtown Manhattan was watching the bollards and barriers go up, and seeing the police presence swelling day by day in preparation for New Year. Likewise, this headline on Ed West's Spectator column that year depressed me:
Christmas markets without armed police are now a thing of the past
...and this letter from longtime reader Robert Strauss:
Mark,
There's something so disheartening and depressing about the closing of the Lyon Christmas market due to the cost of security concerns that it makes a person just plain tired. Christmas markets are such wonderful traditions: fun and kitsch (in the most wonderful way) and beautiful and singularly atmospheric. I love walking through them. It's where a kid's face lights up and a grandparent can escape back into kid-like memories.
And now it's going away. I can't help but think of the hashtag-"not-going-to-let-it-affect-our-daily-lives" mantra coming from the likes of Obama, Sadiq Khan, Theresa, and soda-tax enthusiast Jim Kenney. Hey, the gift-packaged barriers really look nice and Christmasy, don't they? Nothing abnormal there, people. Just pretend there still is a Christmas market when you look at the cute, packaged barriers and enjoy the carols in your earbuds.
What a sad, heartbreaking crock.
Bob S.
And that was followed by the latest vehicular jihad in a thoroughly bollardised Melbourne. That last one I wrote about, but you can't write about them all - because you'd go mad writing the same column over and over while the western world's political class sticks its fingers in its ears and says, "Nya-nya, can't hear you!" No amount of death or destruction will persuade them to change the mad course they have set. And so once open and shared traditions become throttled by bollards and security. And in meekly agreeing to surrender our future we lose our past, too.
So instead I woke up early one morning and wrote up my feelings on this madness as a short story, which we offer over the next two nights as a bonus Tale for Our Time, which Mark Steyn Club members can hear by clicking here and logging-in.
It's not in the same league, obviously, as our classic Christmas offerings from Charles Dickens and Dylan Thomas, but you never knew, it may be competitive with Jefferson Farjeon, of whom more below. And it is a postscript to those tales of a society that, whatever its faults, was bound by shared customs and traditions.
~Re Mr Farjeon, Mystery in White has divided Tales for Our Time listeners like no tale since The Riddle of the Sands. We wrapped up last night with Vance in Ohio denouncing it as "a ridiculous s**tshow". Twenty-four hours later, Gareth, a Steyn Clubber in the English East Midlands, begs to differ:
That was highly enjoyable. I was going to give it a miss as I had read it before and thought it was nonsense but from the very first chapter, this time around it was mysterious and intriguing. If you don't pay attention then it just isn't going to happen...
Thanks Mark, I thought you'd chosen a dud there, even the ending was great. I kept waiting for it to go off the rails but it didn't.
But Margaret Hughes inclines more Vancelike:
I persevered to the very end but it was a tad contrived for my taste. I'm still trying to work out why the chap who spent the whole time in bed was even included in the story. I entertained the possibility he might have been feigning illness and turn out to be the murderer. It might have been more engaging had that been the case. Not the best murder mystery I've ever come a cross. Sorry to be negative. Just my opinion and no reflection on Mark.
~If you're not yet a member of The Mark Steyn Club, we've a veritable library of audio adventures waiting for you - by Conan Doyle, H G Wells, Conrad, Kipling, Scott Fitzgerald. You can find more information about the Club here - and, if you've a pal who'd appreciate these Tales for Our Time, check out our Gift Membership. It's a perfect Christmas present, and can be digitally delivered.
If you enjoy Episode One, please join us for the conclusion of Plum Duff tomorrow evening, Monday, and for more Christmas fare as the week proceeds.