Seven years
The Nineties are recalled in Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time, they are times that seem now so long ago and so different that they belong to a different age. The story described is set in a pre-electronic age, when the world seemed steady, stable. The Nineties in the story are set against a canvas very different from the beauty of the … [continue reading …]
Kneecapped
On Saturday, I went to see the film Kneecap. I’m not sure why. There had been publicity about it winning awards, about it possibly receiving a nomination for an Academy Award. It seemed the sort of thing about which people might talk. Perhaps students at school would mention it. It was advertised as a biopic on the Belfast hip-hop group of … [continue reading …]
How would the soup dragon respond?
An overwhelming majority on the basis of less than 40% of the vote. It would cause a shortage of soup. On 10th October 1974, the day of the general election, the second to be held in Britain that year, just before the evening news, in the slot that might be filled by the Magic Roundabout or Captain Pugwash, there came … [continue reading …]
Heathercombe Brake School Photographs
There are 679 (or thereabouts) photographs here. Some of them are duplicates and some of them are in random order. Paul Pope sent me a zip file in 2014 and I have been meaning to sort and upload them ever since. To have digitized these from prints to computer files must have taken many, many hours. They are nearly all … [continue reading …]
Holding back the waters
BBC Somerset carried pictures of flash flooding in the county. Turning to the Flood Information Service, the area threatened seemed extensive. From Yeovil, which lies on the border with Dorset, to Steart, where the River Parrett reaches the Bristol Channel. Flooding is possible – be prepared Flood alert for Rivers Yeo and Parrett, downstream of Yeovil to Steart Updated 12:12am … [continue reading …]
A Sermon for Sunday, 13th October 2024
“many who are first will be last, and the last will be first” Mark 10:31 Christians through the centuries have been very good at avoiding the words of Jesus that we do not want to hear, either we ignore them altogether, or we assume that what is being said does not apply to us, that it is being said for … [continue reading …]
Not cancelling
School returns this week and conversations with brilliant young students will resume. The classicists told me last year that a writer called Rick Riordan had become very popular among people their age because J.K. Rowling had been ‘cancelled’. I’m not sure why this had happened and didn’t pursue the discussion. There is something troubling about the cancel culture, where does … [continue reading …]
Still looking for a tune
Popcorn by Hot Butter. I spent forty years not knowing what that piece of music was. For years I had imagined that it was something from the BBC Radiophonics workshop output in the 1970s because Radio 4 used it as a theme tune for a programme. Then about ten years ago, I was driving along listening to an Internet station … [continue reading …]