The other day I decided to buy fruit and vegetables, not at the supermarket, but at the local independent greengrocer and fishmonger that has stood on Beeston High St for over a century. It is a friendly and excellent local institution (pretty advanced in non-use...
I boasted on Facebook that I was given eleven books for my birthday (thank you very much to the donors!) This is just as consumerist as boasting about any other item I have bought or someone has bought for me, but never mind. Many of...
Most people in Britain today who are even half-literate will have heard of CS Lewis, and a large proportion will have read one or more of his books, or had it read to them. When you think about it, this is quite impressive for someone...
(This is not a review, but it does contain a few spoilers for the film. The spoilers are significant, but are also entirely predictable, which is part of the point.) The film “Avengers: Endgame”, the 22nd in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise/storyline, does not in fact...
Some people, mostly English, think it’s very important to say that Parliament is absolutely sovereign. But “the principle of unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle and has no counterpart in Scottish constitutional law.” So said the President of the Inner House of the...
An actor called Paul Darrow, "science fiction icon", died this week. This set me off on an obscure trip down memory lane, and in particular to an evening long ago in my grandparents’ spare bedroom, which I spent learning some of DG Rossetti’s poem “Sister Helen.”...
(No volunteers to review "Endgame"?) A few more miscellaneous thoughts from the returned tourist: Bowing. Yes, people do bow, especially to their customers. I did see two elderly women, friends, bowing repeatedly to each other when saying goodbye, but on the whole the bowing didn't look awkward...
In the book of Genesis, Jacob is a patriarch, father of twelve sons, who are the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. He also had a daughter, Dinah, whose story (Genesis chapter 34) is not often preached on. She was visiting some local female...
I am even more conscious than usual that I am writing from a position of almost total ignorance. Before leaving this country for a holiday in Japan, I read one book of history, and looked up Shinto on Wikipedia. I then spent two weeks looking at...
More about Japan later. But now for something rather different...