Government catalogues Christmas carols

The world's only government department for Christmas carols has opened its doors in Austria.

Staff at the office in Graz catalogue festive music from around the world - and teach people how to sing it properly.

It even includes a helpdesk - manned by trained musicians familiar with thousands of carols and Christmas tunes - where members of the public can phone in to hum a forgotten favourite.

"Many of the callers are people trying to track down a song from their childhood but they can only remember a line or two or part of the melody," explained a spokesman.

"But using the experience of our experts, we can track down most carols or songs,"  they added.

The carol hunters use a reference library of 1,000 song books cataloguing more than 50,000 songs covering everything from traditional tunes like 'Oh Tannenbaum' to 'Last Christmas' by George Michael's Wham.

The service -  funded by the regional government - is also available over the internet.

Director Eva-Maria Hois said: "We are getting calls from all over the world. There is a real demand for our service."