Description
FAQs:
- How and why did you make it? See my blogpost over at Leeds Libraries.
- 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 dubious age, origin and veracity, 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):
The optional inside-front-cover artwork is now £2 instead of £1 because the artist, egged on by her mum, demanded a pay increase, and had me over a barrel. Like Thatcher when faced with the NUM, I am building up stocks to prevent her holding me to ransom again. Maybe she’ll now start paying for her Beano subscription. - 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. When? No idea.
- What about local editions, or ones for a specific historical period? Slicing and dicing specialised ones is easy – as long as there’s sufficient good content. Not putting a date on this.
- When will the 2027 almanac appear? You can order now for delivery in summer 2026.
- Your “Bibliography with citation locators” is handy, but how about an index? Coding it is easy, but at the moment you’d get a bad index at the cost of quite a lot of extra pages. I’ll work on it.
- How does it all work? I wrote a plugin which sits on top of the WordPress installation and spits out the website and book.
- How can I stay up-to-date and in touch with Yorkshire? There’s a daily Yorkshire Almanac email on the website.
- Do you sing Yorkshire songs with your barrel-organ? Leeds’s Singing Organ-Grinder Performs the Yorkshire Almanac Songbook.
- How do you find time? Maynard Ferguson has the answer (and watch the fingerwork at the beginning):
