10 very similar French and Welsh words

1. pont/pont Bridge
2. église/eglwys Church
3. mer/môr Sea
4. triste/trist Sad
5. fenêtre/ffenestr Window
6. terre/tir Land
7. une/un One
8. toi/ti You
9. boue/baw Mud
10. livre/llyfr Book

Recent Purchase

As a sort of pre-Christmas present to myself I recently bought an album I only discovered a few years ago. Tales from the Book of Time, like its predecessor Beltane, is a reworking of some of the music of Marc Bolan by the French Canadien singer Catherine Lambert. The treatment is a baroque one with lots of harpsichord, recorders and strings. The main CD contains 15 songs from the period from Unicorn to the T Rex album, a golden era for Bolan and beautifully presented on this excellently produced album. I was familiar with most of the tracks through Youtube (see above for example). (I've not explored the second CD yet, an audiobook).
I had almost despaired of getting hold of the 2004 album. I saw one advertised somewhere for over a thousand pounds. I got this one from discogs and it was very reasonably priced although I had to pay the same price again more or less to get it from Switzerland. It really is worth having, however.

10 Continental Reformed Pastors/Theologians who lived in England

1. Martin Bucer, German Reformer 1491-1551 (1549-1551)
2. Peter Martyr Vermigli, Italian Reformer 1499-1562 (1547-1553)
3. John Laski, Polish Reformer 1499-1560 (1550-1556)
4. Paul Fagius, German Hebraist 1504-1549 (1549)
5. Valerand Poullain, French Calvinist minister 1509?-1557 (1547-1553)
6. Immanuel Tremellius, Italian Jewish Hebraist 1510-1580 (1547-1553)
7. Francisco de Enzinas, Spanish scholar and apologist 1518?-1552 (1548, 1549)
8. Casiodoro de Reina,  Spanish Lutheran Theologian 1520-1594 (1533-1563)
9. Robert La Fontaine, French Calvinist minister 1535-1611 1572-1611
10. Pierre Alexandre, French Calvinist minister Dates unknown (1548-1553, 1559-1563)

Hairstyles 6 French Twist

Stilfehler, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>,
via Wikimedia Commons

Holiday Gem 06

6. Il Est Né / Ca Berger is by Anna McGarrigle, Kate McGarrigle & The Chieftains and is on the 1991 Chieftains album The Bells of Dublin.

I've long been a Chieftains fan and actually saw them perform once when I was a student in Aberystwyth. At some point they decided that instrumental music could be a bit boring and so they saw the way forward was to have just about anyone they fancied sing with them. On this their only (?) Christmas album they drag in not only the McGarrigle sisters but the Renaissance Singers of Belfast, Elvis Costello, Burgess Meredith, Marianne Faithfull, Nolwen Monjarret, The Voice Squad, Nanci Griffith, Jackson Browne and Rickie Lee Jones and Suzie Katayama. They also perform with the Northumbrian Pipe of Kathryn Tickell and the accordion of Brendan Begley and on their own. It's mostly carols and Christmas airs but some of it is not necessarily Christmassy. There are 23 tracks altogether, all good fun. The bells of Dublin themselves also feature. I got mine off i-tunes. The Wren in the Furze is another favourite.