Isle of Wight Author Noel Turner had to do plenty of research for his new book ‘Noel and Ellen’s Strange and Wonderful History of the Dreaded Christmas.’ it’s not just a parody of round robins, but also a surprising history of Christmas itself.

The story so far…. Noel and Ellen spend their year supposedly researching the history of Christmas newsletters from famous people through the Ages and present the results in their own end of year round robin.  The over-the-top linking pieces are apparently written by Ellen (we all know men don’t write letters at all, these days, let alone Christmas newsletters), and in the third person, of course.

 

“I have imagined a fictional Noel and Ellen scouring the earth for Christmas newsletters from famous figures throughout history”, explains author Noel Turner.

‘It is rather odd trying to imagine yourself writing a Christmas newsletter from a figure like the Emperor Constantine, who is absolutely key to the creation of Christmas, but really has no idea when Christmas actually is, nor even what year it is, in the same sense that we do today. So how does one date the letter, for example?’

Noel, likes to think of himself as a bit of a polymath, after the fashion of Stephen Fry: ‘I love QI, as well as all kinds of quizzes and games’, he muses. Noel is an ‘expert’ Scrabble player, which is something equivalent to a chess master.  He helps run Newport Scrabble Club, and organises annual Scrabble tournaments on the Island which have attracted players from as far away as Australia.

‘History – not science – is my favourite subject in Trivial Pursuit’, says Noel, a radar design engineer by day. ‘I would love to emulate Stephen in captaining a ‘University Challenge’ team.  We recently tried entering a team of ‘Boffins’ for the ‘Professionals’ version, but there were so many applicants we just missed out on being on the programme.’

For now Noel will have to make do with his past successes on TV quiz shows.  He won ‘The Weakest Link’, one of the few feats that Fry has not yet achieved, and early this year was set up by Channel 4’s ‘Balls of Steel’ programme to get a general knowledge hammering from the Cheeky Girls. ‘They were getting their answers via earpieces that I couldn’t see’, promises the author. ‘I knew something was up when they asked me what was pi to 6 decimal places. I failed at 5, but the Cheeky Girls came out with 8!’

New humour book does for the Christmas newsletter what ‘1066 And All That’ did for Simon Schama (absolutely nothing).  However we found Noel and Ellen’s Strange and Wonderful History of the Dreaded Christmas. would make an excellent stocking filler and can be purchased online or from all good Island bookstores.

Editor @Island Pulse.