Merry Christmas

"Left and to the Back" will be taking a break while you lot chew on your mince pies and fiddle with the Beach Boys box sets you got as presents while the rest of your family nag you to do something else instead. It's not quite Christmas yet, I'll grant you, but nonetheless the reading figures usually start to plummet around about now, and I've got a busy festive season ahead so unfortunately won't be in a good position to keep the blog updated.

If you're utterly desperate for mp3 fun while I'm gone - and in particular, festive orientated mp3 fun - well, you're spoilt for choice.

If you haven't downloaded them already, the "Sweeping The Nation" festive mp3 compilations are almost a box set in themselves and worthy of several spins. These genuinely mop up most of the decent festive obscurities and oddities out there.

Failing that, "The Lord of the Boot Sale" has updated his blog with plentiful festive novelty tracks over the last few weeks, including one or two I had absolutely no idea even existed - Charlie Jones' "Hey Whiskers We Love You" for example, which is seasonal but at the same time faintly disturbing, like Steve Harley drunk whilst wearing nothing but a Santa hat.

And if you're really bored, don't forget the "Left and to the Back" Xmas Spotify playlist, and perhaps even our main playlist which isn't festive, but I get the sneaking suspicion a lot of people have forgotten exists (me included, actually - I need to update that quite soon).

Oh, and don't forget - if you didn't see them first time around, I did an array of Christmas blog posts in 2010 and 2009 which you can re-read again by clicking on the Christmas tag.

Above all else, have a fantastic, restful Yule. This blog aims to be up and running again before New Year's Eve, so I'll hopefully see you before 2012 begins.