4th October 2019
In
General
Life with a lollipop
(News about "The Servant's Voice" at the end of this post...
27th September 2019
In
General
Do you remember Clive Ponting?
I thought I would post slightly obliquely about the current political and legal chaos. The Supreme Court’s decision reminded me of two court cases long ago. In the early 1980s, Ken Livingstone’s Greater London Council (later abolished) introduced radically cheap transport fares. This was challenged in the...
30th August 2019
In
General
“Nursing her wrath to keep it warm”
I apologise for the lack of a post, or even a message, last week. This was due to various technical difficulties. The computer now has a new hard drive, so apparently it was not Windows that was to blame. I was planning to post this week...
9th August 2019
In
General
Outburst of an unhinged technophobe
It is probably appropriate to start by reminding all readers the meaning of the title PPI Blogger - Partial, Prejudiced and Ignorant. I find our modern technological society very useful, of course, but also very frustrating. Please excuse the following outburst, not unrelated to the experience...
Victims of the author
Imagine that you are walking past a lonely graveyard at night, when you hear a terrifying shriek, improbably smell garlic or blood, and see white things flitting about. You run home as fast as you can, lock the door, and then start to wonder. What...
12th July 2019
In
General
Delay and inconvenience
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...
14th June 2019
In
General
How many Elizabeths? The case of MacCormick v Lord Advocate
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...
7th June 2019
In
General
Some sad endings, or Seventies TV
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.”...
31st May 2019
In
General
Home from the East 3: Miscellaneous
(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...
24th May 2019
In
General
How to insult a woman, through the ages
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...