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What every vicar needs to know 25 Aug 2013 | 02:40 pm
Having just got back from holiday, I am missing the Greenbelt Festival in Cheltenham. This also means I missed the launch of Jeremy Fletcher's advice to clergy, neatly contained in a new little book c...
Safe and sound 22 Aug 2013 | 03:42 pm
Being away has made me feel a little detached from the sound and fury of home. But, as I used to work for them, I have followed the GCHQ/NSA business quite closely. It seems as if, suddenly and becaus...
The language of short-term apathy 19 Aug 2013 | 01:23 pm
Still away on holiday, I get back to wifi-land and get pointed to an article in yesterday's Observer newspaper. It seems that language learning in England, rather than getting stronger, is melting lik...
1848 and all that 17 Aug 2013 | 04:57 pm
Going to university back in 1976 opened a new world to me. Never really having the confidence to read widely or expand my interests beyond finding intellectual endorsement for my evangelical faith, I ...
Creation, power and truth 15 Aug 2013 | 09:40 pm
Reading about the American Civil War, Leonard Cohen and the corruption of civilisation in Hitler's Final Solution – a corruption that enabled 'ordinary men' to do inhuman things to other people – migh...
Nibbling cows 14 Aug 2013 | 04:31 pm
It has been remarked that my choice of reading material for a holiday is not 'happy'. The American Civil War, a biography of Leonard Cohen, and now a book about the systematic extermination of Jews in...
A case of Cohen 14 Aug 2013 | 03:49 pm
Monogamy is not the first word that comes to mind when the name Leonard Cohen is heard. He was, to say the least, a bit of a lad. I have just finished Sylvie Simmons' excellent and very readable biog...
History and memory (again) 12 Aug 2013 | 07:34 pm
So, we read yesterday that the Israeli government has given permission for another thousand settlement homes to be built. And the outside observer might be forgiven for wondering if peaceful coexisten...
Let the games begin… 8 Aug 2013 | 07:55 pm
I am about to depart for a break. The timing is terrible. The new Premier League season begins on 17 August, my fantasy league squad is ready, and… er… I won’t be here. So, in order to distract me fr...
Orwell’s nightmare 7 Aug 2013 | 04:38 pm
I caught a hint of a glimpse of a headline somewhere yesterday while on the move. It simply raised the question of how we, citizens of a democratic country, would have responded several decades ago to...
