↓
 

For the fainthearted . . .

  • Home
  • Comments Policy
  • Ian Poulton
  • This blog . . .

Monthly Archives: June 2005

Post navigation

← Older posts

Dartmoor revisited

For the fainthearted . . .

Thirty years ago – the school football team in 1975

I picked my way gently through the Dartmoor roads, at times so narrow that the ferns on both sides touched the car. Partly I was anxious not to get the slightest scratch on the hire car; partly I was trying to remember past moments from those roads and the hills between which they ran. Thirty years ago, but I was still half concerned that I would meet one of the old housemasters driving a school minibus at breakneck speed though …

Being big enough to say sorry

For the fainthearted . . .

This weekend marks the anniversary of me going to a small country parish. I spent seven years there.

One of the problems of being in a parish of 90 families with the same people being in church 52 Sundays of the year, as many of them were, was finding something fresh to say every Sunday. On one hand there was a danger of being bland and saying nothing, on the other there was the danger that, if one said anything challenging or provoking, someone would take offence and there would …

Life's little rituals

For the fainthearted . . .

Going on holiday for the month of August is a big thing in our house. Working 6-7 days a week for most of the year, the chance to escape completely has become very important to us.

The actual process of going on holiday has become surrounded with little rituals. The sense of holiday approaching becomes real each year on a Sunday afternoon in July when we meet in the City Centre for lunch, go around the bookshops for summer reading, and maybe stroll around St Stephen’s Green.

The journey itself …

To laugh or cry?

For the fainthearted . . .

BBC Radio 4 have been running a series on great philosophers, conducting a vote over the internet to see who was regarded as the greatest by those who had listened to the radio programmes. The result is to be announced in July.

It was fascinating to hear that Karl Marx was polling well; perhaps he is regarded as ‘safe’ now that eastern Europe and Russia don’t have to live under the effects of his teaching.

The BBC series is serious, but is also entertaining. Philosophy was fun in university days. …

Failing the Tebbit Test

For the fainthearted . . .


Norman Tebbit, minister in Margaret Thatcher’s government and Conservative Member of Parliament for Chingford in Essex, once suggested that immigrants to the country should be judged on the basis of a “cricket test”. When it came to Test Matches, which side did they support, England or the visiting team, West Indies, Pakistan or India?

I always thought it was an absurd test – one can pay one’s taxes and be a loyal, law-abiding citizen of a country without necessarily feeling that one has to take on every single aspect of …

Decimalised

For the fainthearted . . .

15th June 2005 – It’s 26 years ago today that I finished my A levels; 26 years ago today that I left my Sixth Form College to embark upon a very roller-coaster life.

What’s the significance of 26 years? None really. But then, why should 25 years or 50 years be more significant than 26 years or 49 years? Why do certain numbers seem to have a hold over us?

100 seems to be a powerful number. I know that it’s because it requires a third digit, but in the …

Post navigation

← Older posts

Recent Comments

  • Anthony Crouch on Wallander’s half-finished heaven
  • Musana Ronald on Sermon for Saint Peter’s Day 2014
  • Beth Siders on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Thomas Kelly
  • Harvey Davies on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs
  • Paul Pope on Young people have become boring
  • Susan Wilson on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Katharina von Schlegel
  • TERENCE TURNER on An A-Z of Hymnwriters: Katharina von Schlegel
  • Paul Pope on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs
  • Vince on Not cancelling
  • Robert Andrew on Heathercombe Brake School Photographs

Blogroll

  • A Rambling Rector (Retired) The blog of Dr Stanley Monkhouse
  • A Somerset Lad – my other blog: part memoir, part diary, part whimsy
  • Head Rambles Ireland’s most cantankerous auld fella
  • Joakim's God Talk
  • Mixed Messages
  • Póló

Categories

Archives

©2025 - For the fainthearted . . . - Weaver Xtreme Theme
↑