ARTS
2019: Listening Highlights (with free playlists!!)
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
20th December 2019
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U2
20th Century
Q Marks the Spot 134 (December 2019)
Sacred Treasure One man mission – a fascinating story about reviving Welsh chapels – and fascinating it gets such a high profile on the BBC
1st December 2019
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art & painting
Q Combinations 21: The big IF of Easter (from AE Housman & Eugène Burnand)
There is an emotional complexity to this wonderful painting by Swiss artist Eugène Burnand. I know very little about him, apart from the usual resort of Wikipedia. But he manages to capture a moment of almost frantic inquisitiveness, as Peter and his young, fellow-disciple John rush in the golden sunrise light to the burial garden. Their faces seem filled with anxiety, confusion, hope, wonder, and longing all at once. Hoping against hope, but fearing a con, or something worse? Could Mary Magdalene, first to visit the tomb, possibly have been right…?
21st April 2019
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ARTS
Music has been a key to the cave – some Darkness Spotify playlists
I’ve posted before on occasion about the power of music for those battling mental ill-health. Music was a gift to me from very young age
22nd May 2018
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21st Century
Two Appearances on Cooper and Cary have words
A couple of weeks ago, James Cary invited himself for lunch – and then we hooked up online with our old friend Barry Cooper (now
27th March 2018
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AFRICA
Q Marks The Spot – Treasure Map 113 (January 2018)
Happy New Year Y’all! Sacred Treasure Tim Keller wrote a helpfully argued piece for the New Yorker last month: Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and
1st January 2018
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ARTS
Singing into the Light: U2’s Songs of Experience wordle
I’m not quite sure why I first did this, but started making wordles for U2 albums a while back. So naturally, with a new album
4th December 2017
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AMERICAS
Musical Rage at the terrifying MADness of our times
I’ve just seen U2’s performance of Bullet the Blue Sky on last night’s Fallon. Oh. My. God. That’s no expletive. But a prayer. A Prayer
8th September 2017
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ARTS
Revisiting U2’s No Line on the Horizon
This post is not exactly in the heat of the moment. But because the site for which I wrote the article is no longer in
6th August 2017
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art & painting
Q Combinations 15: Hopper’s Automat and Cowper’s Stricken Deer
It’s nearly 10 months since I last did a combo – so here’s the latest. William Cowper is a personal hero – he has featured
6th July 2017
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ARTS
U2’s Songs of Innocence (4): No longer alone with tectonic forces? VOLCANO
There’s a surprising amount of the natural world on Songs of Innocence, just as there was in fact in No Line on the Horizon (the
2nd October 2014
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ARTS
U2’s Songs of Innocence (3): A Disquieting Lullaby (SLEEP LIKE A BABY)
U2 can be pretty shocking. If you’ve followed social media recently, you’ll know they’ve caused global offence by giving away their Songs of Innocence album for free (oh, and
24th September 2014
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