Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - and not dead yet, despite the best efforts of the dirty stinkin' rotten corrupt American "justice" system. On the sixteenth of this month, the Mann vs Steyn trial will, after a thrilling twelve-year build-up, finally begin in Courtroom 518 of the District of Columbia Superior Court. But, for the moment, I am at liberty and thus able to conduct another midweek edition of our Clubland Q&A, taking questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet. The fun starts at 3pm North American Eastern/8pm Greenwich Mean Time.

Today's show is our first of 2024, so feel free to shoot me any theories on where you feel the world is headed in the next twelve months. Wherever we're going, we're travelling at a helluva lick, and continuing to accelerate. As the UK Covid inquiry makes clear, the "experts" are all agreed that, whatever happens next, the Covid model is to be applied all over again but even more ruthlessly.

~I'm also willing to take any questions on my upcoming legal battles on either side of the Atlantic. It looks as if my case against Ofcom will be coming to the English High Court a week or two after my DC trial wraps up. In fact, it's not altogether impossible that the latter could run into the former. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, or have a massive stroke.

~In opposition to the litigious Michael E Mann's climate-change "hockey stick", we have a limited-edition SteynOnline Liberty Stick to help me through a month in the grisly yet ludicrously expensive American capital city. The Liberty Stick features Magna Carta at one end and the US Constitution at the other, so you can shake it, according to taste, either at Ofcom censorship czars Michael Grade and Melanie Dawes or at your local Secretary of State as she removes Trump from the ballot - or at multiple Commonwealth commissars in between, such as those tormenting the Canadian truckers and throwing the book at Kiwi vaccine whistleblowers.

These Liberty Sticks are individually signed and numbered by yours truly - and are made not round the back of the Wuhan Institute of Virology but by all-American types in Minnesota. They're going down well. From Todd Hynes, a First Month Founding Member of The Mark Steyn Club in Ontario:

Thrilled that my Liberty Stick #101 finally arrived this week. It is a well-travelled stick, as the Canadian Border Patrol flagged it as 'vaguely described' and returned to sender. Nonetheless, it is a wonderful addition to my bookcase.

I'd say it's the Canadian Border Services Agency that's "vaguely described", Todd. Other than standing vigilant against Steyn Store merchandise, it's not clear what "services" they provide to the "border" or anything else.

~As I recall, the Omicron sub-variants were named BA.1, BA.2, BA.3, etc. Did that stand for "British Airways"? They seem to be unusually prone to the new scourge of Sudden Adult Death Syndrome:

A British Airways crew member collapsed and died while on duty in front of shocked passengers.

The 52-year-old steward tragically collapsed as the busy flight from London Heathrow to Hong Kong prepared to depart.

That's Heathrow. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, at Newark...

A second BA steward, also 52, died in the US on December 23...

The cabin crew worker had been found dead in his hotel room, passing away during a stopover between flights.

A source said: "Crew are frantic. These were two healthy people who suddenly dropped dead. There were no reported underlying health issues..."

Hmm. In a thriller, these would be the first two random incidents that an alert public-health scientist notices and links together to figure out what's going on. But, in real life, the public health agencies are all on the take from Big Pharma and so it'll just get swept under the carpet until the planes start dropping from the skies...

~On a not unrelated theme, a final word on the Christmas season from Spectator reader Rick Smith:

The Xmas cracker I was served up had a note inside saying the snap had been removed to make it 100% recyclable.

All joy must be drained out of everything it seems.

Crackers that don't crack - because that's what it takes to save the planet.

~Many viewers, listeners and readers have asked how they can support these important free-speech cases on both sides of the Atlantic. There are several ways - and, if your Christmas gift for your beloved failed to do the trick and you urgently need to restore household tranquility, the first two below can be digitally delivered:

a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;

b) buying a near-and-dear one a SteynOnline gift certificate;

c) ordering a copy of my latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it, says Kathy Gyngell);

d) snapping up one of the aforementioned SteynOnline Liberty Sticks; or

e) treating your loved one to a once-in-a-lifetime Mark Steyn Caribbean Cruise.

~Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our Clubland Q&A live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and among the additions to our ranks at New Year is a newbie from Tiptree - "the largest village in England" and home of one of my favourite marmalades (and ginger conserves). However, we also welcomed a new member from Koh Kae on the island of Phuket - and Koh-Kae is one of my favourite brands of peanuts, although I believe they're from Bangkok rather than Phuket. Nevertheless, whether bearing nuts or marmalade, if you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.

But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in.