International – For the fainthearted . . .

Dickens the tactician

Spending more time than desirable behind the wheel of a car, audio books have become important. Last year an Audible subscription brought the option to choose the books to which I wished to listen, along with some bonus choices.

The £7.99 a month cost seemed good value compared with the cost of most other entertainments. On Boxing Day, I paid £19 to stand on the terraces at Yeovil Town to watch a poor quality National League football match, tickets for rugby matches are more and tickets for music concerts considerably …

Searching for a refugee

Family trees are like jigsaws, they are fun to complete and there is always a special sense of satisfaction when finding pieces that unexpectedly fit together or putting in that piece where the pattern did not initially seem quite right.

So when when a friend at lunch on Sunday gave me a couple of names with which to start, I was delighted to start the puzzle. As the picture has slowly emerged it has been a surprise to me, and an even greater surprise to him.

One grandmother was Italian, …

Thumping the villain

‘What will you do with your time when you have finished your doctorate?’ asked my colleague.

‘Study more,’ I said, ‘or spend my life watching detective programmes and reading every Maigret novel,’

‘What is it about clergy and detective fiction? My uncle was a priest in a missionary order and I once asked him if I could buy him some books as a gift. I thought he woukd want some theology or spirituality books but he asked me for detective novels. ‘It seemed odd.’

‘Perhaps it’s not so strange,’ I …

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 it stop? Who decides what is acceptable? Who determines which history is remembered? Were every piece of writing or work of art judged on the perceived political views of the …

The last eye witnesses are disappearing

There was a sadness in the commemoration of the D-Day anniversary this month. The undeniable truth was that in a few years’ time there will be no-one left who remembers. There will never be the possibility of the verification of strange stories.

Strange stories I heard related to the summer of 1940.

First, there was the story of Jack, a member of the ill-fated British Expeditionary Force that had gone to France at the beginning of the Second World War.

When hostilities began on 10th May 1940, the British forces …

The lesser of two evils

It used to be said that one could judge a man by the company he kept. If that is so then the Prime Minister of Israel is possibly delusional for there is no doubt that the extreme religious parties who support his government are definitely delusional.

But no matter how much of a fruitcake he may be, there is one thing for certain, life under his government would be infinitely preferable to life under the religious fundamentalists who are the current cause celebre for the so-called progressives who now go …