Description
FAQs:
- Is it available from standard retailers? Amazon, Waterstones, Abebooks, etc., but it’s much better for me, our daughter and our community that you buy here.
- Do you offer a trade discount? Yes – talk to me.
- Tell me more about The Saga of Otis and Silica! This recently discovered monthly epic of uncertain age, translated from Middling Low German, tells the story of two nobodies from the East Riding who move to Leeds following studies in the lore-halls of Hell, which have given them a taste for lamb and singable verse. Installed in Headingley, they revolutionise urban greens maintenance with a Lease-a-Lamb scheme, take the oratorio We All Like Sheep (Feat. Messiah) on a tour by public road-serpent of the livestock auction marts of the Dales, descend into the depths of Semerwater in pursuit of a satanic ram, pedal from coast to Craven in the hoofprints of Anglo-Saxon and Cistercian flocks, go on the Otley Run, get involved in a Nativity put on by the Republic of Sheep, and confront Odin during Midnight Mass in the new chapel of St Cædmon on Headingley Hill.
- Who is this artist called Rosa? Some previous work, aged 4¼ (script, scenography, still photography):
- Are you going to publish an eBook? No plans. I think the physical format works well for bedside, bathroom and lounge, and epubs always get pirated to feed the AI industry. I may do a hardback.
- I bought the 2025 almanac. Are the entries different in the 2026 one? Some are, but most are not. (Improvement is continuous: an almanac bought in October 2025 is different from one bought a month later. One day I’ll get the machine to spit out a change log.)
- Are you going to do other flavours? I have discovered sagas dealing with apples and cider, and with the replacement of brass bands with kazookestras – both thoroughly Yorkshire themes. But I can’t put a date on their appearance.
- What about local editions? Slicing and dicing a Leeds one is easy – 2027?
- When will the 2027 almanac appear? Summer 2026.
- Why is the optional inside-front-cover artwork now £2 instead of £1? The artist (6), egged on by her mum, demanded a pay increase, and she had me over a barrel. Like Thatcher when confronted by the NUM, I am building up stocks to prevent her holding me to ransom again, and I hope she will herself shortly start paying for her Beano subscription.
- How can I stay up-to-date and in touch with Yorkshire? There’s a daily Yorkshire Almanac email on the website.
- How do you find time? Maynard Ferguson has the answer (and watch the fingerwork at the beginning):
- Do you sing Yorkshire songs as well? Yup! Book The Singing Organ-Grinder to perform (sometimes with monkey) an instructive and amusing musical programme containing great tunes and great doggerel relating to the idea of Yorkshireness, taking you from the mythical beginnings of Yorkshire, via Viking berserkers, Civil War beer excesses, encounters with Robin Hood (in Yorkshire, obviously) and the Grand Old Duke of Pork, the Dragon of Wantley, an 18th century steelworker-turned-poacher, 19th century caricatures and serious inventions of Yorkshire character, fairs and fun, 20th century advertising songs, machine music about industrial decline, to a new song about the physical and philosophical nature of Leeds’s ginnels. Talk to me.
