Sweetcorn Polenta

(Supposed to serve four, actually serves two unless you're a supermodel.)

560g frozen sweetcorn.
500 ml water.
40g butter.
200g feta cheese, crumbled.
1/2 tsp salt.
Freshly ground pepper.

For the aubergine sauce:
150 ml vegetable oil.
1 medium aubergine in 2cm dice.
2 tsp tomato paste.
60 ml white wine.
200g chopped tomatoes.
100 ml water.
1/2 tsp salt.
1/2 tsp sugar.
1 tbsp chopped oragano, plus whole leaves to garnish.

Make the sauce. Heat oil in large pan. Fry aubergine on medium heat for 15 mins til brown. Drain and discard the oil. Stir in tomato paste, cook for 2 mins. Add wine, cook for a minute. Add the toms, water, salt, sugar and oregano and cook for five mins to make a sauce. Set aside.

For the polenta, place the sweetcorn in a medium-sized saucepan and pour in the water to cover. Add half the butter and cook on low simmer for 12 mins. Lift out the sweetcorn with a slotted spoon and put in food procssor. Whizz them up for a few minutes, add a bit of water if too dry. Return the corn paste to the water pan and, over low heat and stirring all the time, cook for 15 mins so the mix goes like mashed potatoes. Now add remaining butter, feta, salt and pepper and cook for 2 mins longer.

Divide the polenta into bowls and spoon the sauce into the centre. Garnish with oregano leaves and then go nom, nom, nom.  Drink the remaining white wine and Happy Christmas!

And there were a few more Doctor Who writers talking about their favourite Christmas music...

‘”Wonderful Christmas Time” by Tom McRae (no, the other one). It's on a CD of modern covers called Maybe This Christmas Tree. Stick this track on when you're grinding teeth smiling at relatives. Starts with a cigarette being lit and ice cubes chinking in a glass.  McRae turns McCartney's cheerathon into a minimalist, piano and cello confession aching with loneliness. He manages to flip "Simply having a wonderful Christmastime" into the biggest lie in pop lyrics. But when he ends on "We're here tonight, and that's enough", and leaves it hanging.... you know he's right,’ – Chris Chibnall (writer ‘42’, producer Torchwood).

‘My all time Christmas Favourite would be The Pogues' “Fairytale of New York”. Hope, despair, drunkeness, romanticism, regret, joy, cynicism, sentimentality - everything I associate with the season (plus the sublime Kirsty McColl) in four and half minutes of genius.
All together now ... " I could have been someone ...",’ – Stephen Greenhorn (writer, ‘The Lazarus Experiment,’ ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’.)

‘I've always loved “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, because it's the creepiest, most horrifying Christmas song of all.  "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake." Brrrr. "He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness' sake." Since when did Father Christmas set himself up as moral arbiter? And what will he do if I fall short of his strange Icelandic ideals of right and wrong? Chills the soul.  But my favourite song is the German version of “Silent Night”. Whenever I hear it, it takes me back to when I was fourteen, and in a school production of Oh What a Lovely War, playing an English tommy hearing the sound of “Stille Nacht” coming from the enemy trenches. It was being in that musical - badly acted and cheap as it no doubt was - which taught me about the sacrifices made during the First World War, and whenever I hear that carol I'm reminded of the bravery of others, and of absent friends,’ – Rob Shearman (writer, ‘Dalek’.)

‘Putting doctor who into christmas songs makes them much better!’

Does it, script editor Brian Minchin?

‘”’Twas christmas eve, down in the drunk tank,
A timelord turned to me, said let's see another one!
And then he sang a song, of Ood and Cybermen,
We dreamed of a better time, when all our dreams come true.

WOULD be the best xmas song of all time.  So there.  Try it, it works!’

So can I blog that?

‘If you try and write one too!’

... okay.  Here we go. 

‘Hark the Weeping Angels sing,

They’re some sort of quantum thing.

Make sure that you look straight ahead,

Or you’ll be seven centuries dead.’

Will that do?  Well, it’ll just have to.  It’s nearly Christmas Eve and I’ve got stuff on...

‘I’ll start you off!  How about...

‘”God Rest ye Merry Silurians” -

“Away in a Tardis” -

“O little town of New New Earth “-‘

Brian...

‘“Good King Sycorax, looked out...”’

Brian?

‘“Cloister bell rings, are you listening? 
On Clom, snow is glistening...’

Clom?  And we have a handful of SF writers who responded to the request for favourite Christmas movies...

‘A Muppet Christmas Carol.  Reason one, Michael Caine's Scrooge. Reason two, usually I'm much more outre and sophisticated in my choice of easy sentiment, but 'tis the season to be obvious, and anyway it's the only one that's lasted, for me and mine.  Favourite Christmas song has to be “A Fairytale of New York” the Pogues one, as reason two, above,’ – Gwyneth Jones (Bold As Love, White Queen).

‘Every year, for more years than I could possibly count, I've watched Jimmy Stewart rescue the angel Clarence from a poor decision by a bridge in the snow in Bedford Falls, look back on a life of seemingly poor decisions, and then find the wonder and joy in them. I know It’s a Wonderful Life is schmaltzy and predictable, neither of which are typically my thing, but Capra's Christmas tale is a lifelong favorite. There are other less sentimental films - and I'm generally a terrible sucker for Christmas movies (even the awful ones) - but I don't think I'll ever leave this one behind.  Oh, and as a corrective: the best Christmas song ever has to be The Pogues’ "A Fairytale of New York",’ –Jonathan Strahan (editor, The New Space Opera, the Eclipse anthologies).

‘I suspect this is going to be a popular choice, but my all-time favourite Christmas movie is Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life.  James Stewart is perfect as George Bailey, and the end, where the whole community rallies around him, still brings a tear to my eye. For a story that's more than sixty years old, it seems particularly pertinent to Christmas 2008, after all, the villain is a greedy banker.  Okay, maybe it's overly sentimental, but that's Christmas,’ – Alan Campbell (Scar Night, Iron Angel).

Did you lot compare notes before coming over here? 

‘A Christmas Carol.  Dickens' much-loved tale has been adapted a million times - let's not forget the Muppets - but Patrick Stewart's 1999 version has become a festive staple in our household, and not just because we're Star Trek enthusiasts. Stewart was fascinated by the tale and was the driving force behind this adaptation, in which he plays the lead role. He received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for his portrayal. The ghostly atmosphere is perfect for the long winter evenings and while Stewart brings an austere, Victorian gravitas to it there's also a twinkle in his eye of which Dickens, a witty storyteller, would no doubt have approved. His elation at the end, the sense of last minute reprieve, is wonderfully uplifting yet completely believable thanks to Stewart's earnest performance. We were lucky enough to also catch his one-man production of A Christmas Carol on stage in 2005 and that remains one of my favourite yuletide memories,’ – David Bradley (editor, SFX Magazine).

Thanks, David.  You can tell when someone’s used to writing capsule reviews, eh?  And finally, I’m delighted to say that Laurie Pink heard about me and Mike Collins working together on Captain Britain, and so...