Forget Avatar: David Hockney’s ‘bigger’ vision is the one to relish
When Avatar came out, I couldn’t help but get swept up in James Cameron’s astonishing conception. This is because a hopelessly bad movie was redeemed only by an awesome visual feast of digital artistry, And others were equally swept up. So much so in fact that I noticed at the time that there was a popular […]
Friday Fun 17: Harry Graham’s Ruthless Rhymes
Haven’t done a Friday Fun for a couple of months – oops. So thought i’d share something from a lovely Christmas present I received – a 1942 printing of Harry Graham’s 1930 classic, More Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes. It doesn’t get much darker or blasé than this. Just the ticket to keep morale up during […]
The Disturbing Wonder of Epiphany in Matthew 2
We actually took Epiphany quite seriously at All Souls this year – by which I mean we spent the first 2 Sunday mornings in January looking at Matthew 2. It’s actually quite an unsettling chapter for all kinds of reasons. Quite apart from many of the historical challenges raised by some (though which I think […]
A new John Stott Resource Page
I’ve been thinking about this for a while – and was spurred finally to do something about it after the inspiring Memorial Service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday. It was a great service – the most affecting were the tributes from Frances Whitehead and Ruth Padilla DeBorst as they felt the most personal. But […]
A Bodyguard of Lies: Secrets, sleights of hand and deceptions in wartime
Churchill famously declared during the Second World War that the “Truth is so precious that she must often be attended by a bodyguard of lies” – and the British military effort entailed the largest and most complex exploitation of deception in warfare to date. This involved the twin arms of message interception and code breaking […]
Orwell on The Unspeakable Wrongness of Taking a Life.
I get restless if I don’t have something to read on the bus. So I grabbed the closest thing on my desk as I ran out yesterday – which had been a recently thumbed anthology of George Orwell’s Essays. (I’d been looking at it because of the seminal piece Why I Write, recently recommended to me […]
Perfect potboiler plots? Rely on centuries-old Ecclesiastical Conspiracies
So… you want to write a runaway bestseller in 2012? Hoping to fill the cabin luggage of air-travellers the world over? Well, here is just thing… it’s guaranteed to hit the headlines at the same time and thus rake in the cash. An ecclesiastical conspiracy theory novel, ‘based’ on matters of ‘historical’ record and archaeological […]
The Saigon School of Missiology and Graham Greene’s QUIET AMERICAN
It is not just the victims of imperialism who easily identify its sins and blindspots. Those who have wielded and then lost empires are quick to spot the parallels in others’. Perhaps that was partly why Graham Greene was such a caustic critic of what he perceived as the twentieth century’s new imperialist incarnation: the […]
West Wales Winds and Waves
Oh what joy to be by the sea over New Year. Here are a few happy snaps… Especially good to have had an amazing sunset on New Year’s Day itself, after a couple of very overcast days. Just click on any of them for the rest.
Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 40 (January2012)
HAPPY NEW YEAR from Q, one and all! Sacred Treasure VERY grateful to have been sent this last month – Tim Keller on why Ministry can be dangerous to your health. Excellent. Lots has been written about the passing of Christopher Hitchens. But worth reading are definitely the appreciation by his (Christian) brother, Peter; and […]
