thoughts on the way things have been/are/are perhaps going
So apologies are due; a daily echo was proving a little too much to manage, especially because we've been beset by various challenges in the last few days. So I'll aim for 3 or 4 a week. How's that? Today…
Thomas Gray by John Giles Eccardt, (1747-1748) Time to get out of the house. We're allowed out for up to an hour a day, which is just as well as we'd lose the plot otherwise, as would the dog. Followers…
R. S. Thomas, I imagine, would not necessarily have had much time for me. I don't really know why I think that (and I'm probably committing a gross calumny), but there's a severity and pointedness to his writing which suggests…
There's a special quality to the landscape at Little Gidding. It's not spectacular, nor is it especially unusual. It's archetypally English: undulating, Midlands farmland, broken up by hedgerows, small copses, and the odd steeple. It's a scene replicated across the…
Sacred Treasure There has been much heat and hurt recently about power abuse and church ministry. It is something that I've been working on and engaging with for the last 10 years or so. Here are some of the better…
Tom Stoppard is one of the greatest living playwrights. End of. His output has been remarkable so I've always been excited when news of new work starts doing the rounds. I adore Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead and the truly…
Previous posts Anti-Semitism in the UK: 1. 75 years after Auschwitz...Anti-Semitism in the UK: 2. The challenge of definitions Now I'm super-conscious that the previous post is controversial. But here's one difficulty with it in particular. Supposing, then, that it…
Sacred Treasure This is an extraordinary story that reads like a whodunnit: the stolen early manuscript of Mark? (long read but worth it)I'm an unashamed John Dickson fan - his new book on the historical Jesus looks great: here he…
Sacred Treasure If you've not come across it, "The Saint John's Bible is the first handwritten, hand-illuminated Bible to be commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey in over five hundred years." Some of the images are simply breathtaking. Here is a wonderful selectionMy…
I really wasn't sure how to choose this because there are various options. Spotify and the like will tell you what you listened to the most over the year, which is all well and good. Those who know me can…