Many of the albums featuring songs I have listed in the A Christmas Carol Playlist series can be purchased through amazon.com

I have set up a section in my blogshop where the CDs can be purchased. Take a look at my Christmas Blogshop. I earn a commission on any sales made via my website, and seeing as I intend to ensure my websites pay their own way in 2007, I would appreciate your support :-)

Your heart must be bleeding as much as mine for CVC Asia Pacific, the private equity company that recently bought a 50% stake in PBL, the owners of the Nine Network in Australia. Just think of all that lost advertising revenue because the Fourth Test finished two days early.

190: The approximate number of overs left unplayed when the Melbourne Test finished two and a bit days early.

244,351: The cumulative number of spectators at the MCG over the three days of the Test, an average of 81450 per day. The record cumulative crowd for a Test in Australia was 350,534 for the MCG Test against England in 1936-37, a six-day Test thus averaging a mere 58422 per day.

I'll write more about the Melbourne Test on what should have been either Day Four or Day Five, but for now here are my votes for Day Three of the Melbourne Test, ie, the day that Australia thwacked England by an innings.

Three points: Brett Lee; two points: Shane Warne; one point: Stuart Clark.

With one Test remaining, we have a clear leader. No prizes for guessing who...

Ever since rejecting the petty, power-mongering King George III of England during the war for independence, Americans have seemed to miss having royals to coddle. But whenever we give kingly treatment to a president upon his death, we cheat history.

- Editorial on the death of Gerald R.Ford, Boulder Daily Camera, 28.12.06

The memorial tour for the 38th US President will roll over the next few days. With Ford being an Episcopalian by religion, the Episcopal News Service has details on his funeral and his Episcopalian background.

Melbourne cricket fans denied two days' unbridled adulation of Shane Warne as Test finishes early. Film at 11.

I finish this series with that most English (and most secular) of Christmas traditions, the wassail. It's such an integral part of Christmas that Dictionary.com made wassail its word of the day for December 24.

Here's a recipe for wassail I googled earlier.

So as Christmastide rolls on towards New Year, here is my Wassailing playlist - mostly traditional wassailing songs, and finished off with a delightful Christmas single from 1992 which sounds like it was the outcome of too much wassailing.

On the fourth day of Christmas, I think it's time to wrap this series up, and not in either Christmas wrapping paper or swaddling clothes either.

But before I do ACCP7, there's a few odds and sods that I haven't pulled together into one theme, and unless I get some inspiration between now and Epiphany, I'll leave them for another year to germinate. I hadn't even contemplated the Christmas Oratorios of JS Bach until Al Sharpton made the following pronouncement:

"What James Brown was to music in terms of soul and hip-hop, rap, all of that, is what Bach was to classical music."

"Tune Into FOX News Channel for Live Coverage of President Ford's Death"

- foxnews.com home page, 27.12.06

James Brown emulated WC Fields on Monday by expiring on Christmas Day. Gerald Ford emulated Harry Truman by expiring on Boxing Day.

James Brown was a legendary R&B performer who spent time in jail for crimes of violence. Gerald Ford was an unelected president who complicity in Indonesia's invasion of East Timor - among other episodes - has gone unchecked.

Wikipedia's bio of President Ford is currently in a state of flux, as one would imagine. It does include a 1975 photo of Ford having a chat with his Chief of Staff Richard B.Cheney, and his Secretary of Defense, Donald H.Rumsfeld. (This at a time when Nobel Peace Laureate Henry A.Kissinger was Secretary of State, and George W.Bush was National Guardsman In Absentia.)

I was just about to congratulate Andrew Symonds for being the first non-white person to score a Test century for Australia in men's cricket. Of course, he's the second... one Jason Gillespie beat him to the punch by eight months.

Still, it's testimony to the conservative, imperial institution that Australian cricket has been over the past century and a half. It's getting better - very, very slowly.