'Twas the night before Christmas...

... when all through the house/Not a blogger was stirring... well, maybe some

The great feast of Christmas is almost upon is, dear readers. Indeed, I suspect that by the time most of you read this, it will already be underway, or perhaps even passed. If you celebrate it as a religious festival, then may it bring you peace, solace and communion with the heavenly Father, a joyous commemoration of the birth of Jesus, begotten, as the Nicene Creed reminds us, not created. If, like me, you are purely here for the banter, may the day bring you whatever you want, and as little as possible of what you do not. Be kind to one another and celebrate what is.

This will not detain you long. Remember that Christ the Risen Lord shares a birthday with composer and organist Orlando Gibbons (1583), natural philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, alchemist etc Sir Isaac Newton (1642), first Governor-General of Pakistan Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876), screen legend Humphrey Bogart (1899), impresario extraordinaire Lord Grade (1906), Egyptian statesman Anwar Sadat (1918), director and producer Ismail Merchant (1936), physician, public health official and university grandee Sir Kenneth Calman (1941), strategist and lobbyist Karl Rove (1950), singer-songwriter and phenomenon Shane MacGowan (1957), Leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey (1965), Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau (1971) and brother Alexandre Trudeau (1973) and England cricket captain Sir Alastair Cook (1984).

Remember too that 25 December has often been a busy day in world history (after all, Joseph and Mary found all the hotel accommodation in Bethlehem already booked, and there was no www.booking.com in those pre-internet days).

• AD 496: Clovis I, King of the Franks, was baptised into the Catholic faith by St Remigius, Bishop of Reims.

• AD 800: Charlemagne, King of the Franks and Lombards, was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome by Pope Leo III.

• AD 1000: Stephen, Grand Prince of the Hungarians, was crowned the first King of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II, either in Esztergom or Székesfehérvár.

• 1066: William, Duke of Normandy, was crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey by the Archbishop of York, Ealdred. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stigand, was present, he did not officiate because he had been excommunicated for pluralism, also holding the see of Winchester. It was the first English coronation to take place in Westminster Abbey.

• 1261: Emperor John IV, ruler of the exiled Byzantine court in Nicaea, was blinded and deposed on the orders of his co-emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos. It was his 11th birthday.

• 1758: Johann Georg Palitzsch, a German astronomer, sighted Halley’s Comet, confirming the prediction of former Astronomer Royal, Edmond Halley, as to the timing of its return.

• 1941: the Governor of Hong Kong, Sir Mark Young, surrendered the Crown Colony to Lieutenant General Takashi Sakai of the Imperial Japanese Army. It was retaken by British forces under Rear Admiral Cecil Harcourt on 16 September 1945.

• 1950: four students from the University of Glasgow, Ian Hamilton, Gavin Vernon, Kay Matheson and Alan Stuart, stole the Stone of Scone from King Edward’s Chair in Westminster Abbey, where it has been since 1296, and took it back to Scotland. They were members of the Scottish Covenant Association, a group advocating home rule, and during the removal of the stone it was dropped and broke into two pieces. It was returned in February 1952.

• 1989: Nicolae Ceaușescu, deposed as President of the Socialist Republic of Romania three days before, and his wife Elena were summarily tried for and convicted of genocide, subversion of state power, destruction of state property, undermining the economy and attempting to leave the country at Târgoviște, 50 miles north-west of Bucharest. The trial took barely an hour and the Ceaușescus were sentenced to death. They were executed by firing squad at 2.50 pm.

• 1991: Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, his powers being transferred to Boris Yeltsin as President of the Russian Federation. The USSR was dissolved the following day.

• 2016: singer-songwriter, producer and discreet but prodigious philanthropist George Michael died in bed at his home in Goring-on-Thames of dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and a fatty liver. He was 53.

So, while in no way accepting His existence, in the words of Tiny Tim, “A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us every one”.