Some news from yesterday: 1. A large WW2 bomb has been defused in Augsburg. 2. A 7.6-magnitude earthquake struck southern Chile. 3. HM The Queen missed the Christmas day service at Sandringham. HM's annual Christmas broadcast was unaffected as it was made earlier.

Above, HM’s 2016 Christmas Broadcast courtesy of Global News (http://www.globalnews.ca).
Yesterday, your Editor’s routine followed millions of others: An evening spent watching TV. After watching “Maigret’s Dead Man” on ITV, the TV was retuned to BBC News 24 for the 11:00PM news. Unfortunately, the BBC decided that the news programme was to be cancelled and one had to endure an obituary to a pop singer for twenty five minutes. After the five minute weather forecast they continued with the obituary.
The obituary was about a certain Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou from East Finchley, better known as “George Michael”. It is of course a devastating thing for a person’s family for them to die on Christmas Day and these days, 53 is no age to die. Whilst this organ’s sympathies go to his family and friends, we really do not see how this singular family tragedy requires the cancellation of a news service.
The Augsburg news report. GOTO: https://www.mail.com/int/news/europe/4856498-massive-wwii-bomb-defused-german-town-augsburg.html#.1272-stage-hero1-9
The Chile earthquake (Courtesy of Reuters). GOTO: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-quake-idUSKBN14E0DT