Bananamation Man is BACK (again): The Xorp Grand Prix 2012
Half term was not idly spent by Joshua and my nephew Hudson (despite consistently dismal weather). Over the week, the fused their considerable talents to produce this short, which is little short of a masterpiece (IHMO).
One field, rather a lot of trees and a post-arable parable
20 years ago my parents bought a south-facing wheat-field off a local farmer. As an investment. It’s about 10 acres in beautiful rural Norfolk (here’s a view from the church tower right) So how would you invest?
Friday Fun 28: Aural Nostalgia for an African Day
This is a random Friday Fun. It’s not especially funny, although some will probably think this makes me seem very funny, putting me in the same bracket as collectors of birdsong CDs. Too bad. It just so happened that I was searching for some old files on my computer and came across these – I’d […]
60-second adventures in religion
I can’t remember who told me about these, but they’re fab. The Open University Religious Studies is obviously plugging its wares – but fair enough. The results are wonderful and very useable in all kinds of places I suspect – wryly humoured animation with the added bonus is the wonderfully-suited satirical voice of David Mitchell.
I Am The MOST IMPORTANT Person I’ve Ever Met
Which is a title sufficiently conceited to put anyone off reading this post. But let’s face it – it’sa not uncommon attitude. It lies at the heart of individualism, that pervasiveness western sickness that lies at the root of so many of our ills. It was the title I had in our current series, Great […]
Brain-blizzards: walking the path of William Styron’s DARKNESS VISIBLE
I am SO grateful to Frankie who suggested I read William Styron‘s piercing and affecting ‘memoir of madness’, Darkness Visible. It was back in July that I ordered it, but only this last Saturday when I read it. It is brief – only 80 pages or so – but gripping. I read it one sitting. […]
Friday Fun 27: The delights of political Amphibology
Well, the US presidential election is in its final month at last. Will any of us sleep safely in our beds again? History has been full of people who have hedged their bets and emulated the venerable Vicar of Bray. And in smaller ways, politicians are doing it all the time. Saying things that don’t […]
The Lie Factory and the destructive power of political ‘narrative’
The presenting issue behind the article was the hysteria whipped up against Obama’s healthcare proposals in the US – something which those of us with ‘socialised’, crypto-communist medicine in the UK find hard to understand. I do realise that many on the US right are no fools, that the British NHS is far from perfect, […]
The subversive messages of a dollar bill
I’d been vaguely aware of these from a while back, but had never looked carefully at them. It wasn’t until they were used as running gags in last week’s New Yorker money edition that I sat up and noticed. Dan Tague has created a series of prints in 2008 of dollar bills folded in such […]
Friday Fun 26: US Election Season cartoons
The last New Yorker of September was the annual cartoon edition – with some genuine chuckle-worthy moments. Many of them pick up on the rigours and absurdities of US politics, what with the Presidential debates and elections next month, n’ all.
Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 49 (October 2012)
Sacred Treasure A heart-rending 16thC letter of grief from a pregnant widow to her now buried husband. Very interesting interview in Third Way with Tanni Grey-Thompson (Britain’s greatest paralympian) Covenant Seminar in St Louis have put some great free courses online in their Worldwide Classroom
