9th December 2022

Everyone was a big fan of the children's carol book a few days ago so we thought we'd mention one of the stars of children's Christmas songs. Sydney Carter is probably most famous for three of his songs, "When I Needed A Neighbour", "One More Step Along The World I Go", and of course "Lord Of The Dance". But it's his Christmas output that we feature today.

Carter was born in 1915, grew up in Horsham and studied at Oxford, was a conscientious objector driving ambulances in WWW2, and wrote poetry and songs for musicals and revues, including with Donald Swann (of Flanders and Swann).

"Every star shall sing a carol" is beautiful and wistful and gets close to the "aliens know who Jesus is" meme.

St Malachy's Primary School Choir, singing at the Albert Dock, Liverpool, 2011

And then, like many of Carter's other socially aware hymns and poems, we have "Standing in the rain, knocking on the window on a Christmas Day"

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Advent Calendar 2025

1st December 2025

Hello! We've sort of lost count, but think the first Advent Calendar was back in 2003, the Internet Archive Wayback Machine says it looked like this: Of course all the links are dead, but the thing it has in common with this year's is that it is still coded in HTML, probably the last thing I will ever rely on coding for. Now it looks like this: Happy Advent! We have gone for the Bonne Maman JAM Calendar again this year, after leaving it too late last year and it selling out at both Fenwick and Selfridges! We get a fresh pot of jam every day to enjoy with our tartines and Ovomaltines. We also have the Domino's "Merry Crustmas" leaflet, and a MUJI calendar we'll show you later in the month. Do let us know what you are opening every day! You can leave a message below, or email us your ideas and suggestions for future days at robotmaths@outlook.com Have a great day!

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