Picture the face, spiteful old eyes, squinting disapproval, thin blue lips and permanent

scowl, dry hollow cheeks, around a cold dripping, disappointed beak of a nose.

He sits on his miserable stool, barking his orders, counting his money.

He glairs at the joy, bursting all around him, joy because it's Christmas Eve.

And he grows even meaner and harder and colder still.

What happened to make him this way?

Hadn't he been happy once?

Oh yes, and in love, engaged to a beauty named Bell, employed by the best boss in the

world, who threw parties for his staff as they danced the night away.

So where did it all go so wrong?

There's an answer, of course.

But you have to go back, way back, more than 200 years back, and across an ocean and through

the foggy streets of Victorian England, to a time infected by greed and weighed down by

stark poverty.

Maybe not so different from our own time.

And here you will meet the original, the OG of Mean, the origin story of Ebenezer

Scrooge.

You may think you know his tale of woe all the humbug of it, but most of it just had a taste.

Now you'll live in the very words themselves.

Join me for Charles Dickens, a Christmas Carol.

You can hear the whole story starting Monday, December 11th, available wherever you get

your podcasts.

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