Author Archives: Ian Poulton

A shortage of wizards

“Wizard Festivals” proclaimed the letters across the back of the van. With a Bristol telephone number, it seemed to promise the local availability of some magical events. It conjured images of a Lord of the Rings sort of firework display, the sort provided by Gandalf at Bilbo Baggins’ eleventy-first  birthday party. Perhaps there would be smoke rings that were transformed into the shape of galleons flying through the sky, or dragons that would swoop low over the heads of those gathered. A wizard festival would offer the prospect of the …

A superstar’s missus?

The unseasonably warm weather brought out shoppers in summer attire. Without the autumn colours of the trees, it would have been easy to imagine it a day in mid-July. Among the short-sleeves and the tee-shirts, a middle-aged woman walked through the precinct deep in conversation on the mobile phone held firmly against her ear. Across the front of her black shirt in white letters there were the words, “Mrs Dave Grohl.”

Of course, it is possible that the wife of one of the world’s greatest rock stars could be walking …

Sermon for Sunday, 15th October 2017(Trinity 18/Pentecost 19 Ordinary 28)

“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14

Imagine being invited somewhere and then being ejected because you had not the right clothes. What kind of host would treat you in such a way? What sort of hospitality ends in such public humiliation?

“Friend,” asks the king in the story, “how did you get in here without wedding clothes?” and then he has the man thrown brutally thrown out. What is the story about? Why invite someone only to throw them out because they are not properly dressed? …

Beware of Google being misled

If Google says it is so, does that mean it is true? The dominant power on the world wide web has been invested with a sort of influence unknown to anyone in the past, even the medieval church would have spoken with only a fraction of the authority that Google commands. There is a tendency now not even to question the answers Google gives – if they are simple and non-controversial, then there seems no reason for them not to be authoritative.

A cautionary experience came yesterday.

With the ongoing …

Halloween defies logic

Walking up the high street of the “Capital of Daftness,” the warmth of the sunshine belied the date. At 4.30 pm, the shops were beginning to close, it would have seemed early to close if it had been as warm a summer’s day. Realisation of the date explained some of the shop window displays, and besoms for sale outside a shop; 31st October was approaching. Concerning Halloween, a friend from Northern Ireland would have sought to enlighten anyone prepared top listen, though his words might have found an unreceptive audience …

Floating on land

To a schoolboy, the pumping stations seemed like battleships in hostile waters, protecting the farms and the villages against the rising floods. They seemed always there; although a second thought about the buildings would have told even someone who knew nothing of architecture or engineering that they were recent arrivals on the scene. A government website says they were built in the 1960s and that there are twenty-one pumping stations in Somerset. Prosaic in appearance, the grey concrete and steel adding to the childhood impression of their being like naval …