An Easter confession
Now I know it is Easter this weekend, one of the great festivals of the Church but, father, I have sinned. Do you remember all that stuff in the Bible about not coveting things that belong to your neighbours? Their…
My visit to the Dizzy Clinic
With wonderful lack of pomposity and, I suspect, a welcome sense of humour, my hospital’s Ear, Nose and Throat department have named the consultancy that specialises in problems caused by of the inner ear and balance, the Dizzy Clinic. I…
No more brick throwing but a bit more fairness please
I know, everyone is saying it, everyone is annoyed, horrified and shocked by it but….. that man!!! No not the policeman in charge of anti-terrorism in the UK, who unthinkingly, foolishly and potentially dangerously, went to a briefing with the…
Obama looks East whilst Sarkozy navel gazes
Before going to Iraq to boost his troops morale, President Obama said: “Let me say this as clearly as I can; the United States is not at war with Islam.” He was in Turkey, that country on the border of…
The First One Hundred Days
This is the 100th. day I have been publishing this website and the 100th. day of the blog. OK, it is not like The 100 Days, the period when Napoleon returned from exile before he was defeated at the Battle…
John Keats, a Spring garden and a Summer long ago
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever, wrote Keats who like Shakespeare had a way of coining phrases which sound like they have always been with us. Well, in some cases they were just nicking other people’s cliches…
To be or not to be
There has been an inquest last week for a man who killed his wife and teenage daughter and then burnt down his substantial mansion before killing himself. The inquest was told that the man had lost his money when his…
Will Europe help America defend humanity?
Whilst President Sarkozy of France was hosting the NATO summit and saying unhelpful things about President Obama’s request for more NATO support in the war in Afghanistan, I was listening to a more eloquent Frenchman, Hector Berlioz. Nicolas Sarkozy said…
Wolf goes to see Foxes!
I went out last night. So what? you will probably say. Well it was the first time I have been out….like really out…for over five months. I went out into the big town, Brighton in East Sussex, one of the…
I love France and Germany…..but
Now forgive me. Excusez-moi. Entschudigen. I love a lot of things about Germany and France. I have traveled to both countries many times, I have struggled to speak both languages, and I have been an absorbed student of their history…