A partial diagnosis Dear friends, I’ve been trying for a while to get some kind of comprehension of our national condition. What is the matter with us? The symptoms are many and varied, but the overall malaise and sense of unease seems to be all pervading. It is cheap and convenient to list the external global factors, but I am coming to…

A new name Dear friends, This week we honour and give thanks for those who gave their lives in two world wars for our freedom. We are fortunate to live in communities that are small enough to have recorded every loss, every sacrifice. Or so we thought. Continuing historical research has in the last few years brought more names into the light…

The Tied Chair Dear friends, The Revd John Coulson won’t be a name familiar to you, but the keen-eyed can find it on the board with the list of Rectors at the back of Checkendon Church. He was the second incumbent (=Rector) to be appointed by  University College, Oxford, in 1779, after the College had bought the rights to make the appointment…

Brute (revival!) Dear friends, I’ve decided to join the ranks of celebs who launch their own brand of perfume. My creation harks back to the sexism and libertarianism of the 1970’s, with a fragrance just for men, especially those who are aspiring to leadership. There have been bulk orders from both East and West, and I’m working on a forthcoming Christmas ad…

Truth Telling Dear friends, Going through some old university memorabilia a couple of weeks ago I found a “Michaelmas Term 1983” edition of the college student magazine. One of the contributors to this light hearted and sharply scurrilous organ was Chris Lambe, who was in the year below me. She is still writing, almost forty years on, having become one of the…

Something ridiculous Dear friends, The late theologian Hans Kung, in his vast work “Does God Exist?” sagely wrote that “any talk of God which does not begin, or end, in silence, knows nothing.”  Those of us whose daily work revolves around words – their use, their arrangement, their creation, know that periods of inactivity, and revival are crucial to the engines of…