Humpty Dumpty

Sometimes we English find a word too embarrassing so we codify it. We often speak of TLC {tender loving care) when we might be slightly...

Curiosity may have killed the cat but that does not make it a bad thing. We should be in a poor way if people had never speculated about...

‘Humpty,’ I said. ‘I don’t know about you but I wonder about the Bible. If it were any other book, we should notice the higgledy-piggledy...

‘They turned against him,’ we read (Matthew 13.57). ‘How dare they!’ we may say. ‘Who do they think they are? His own family, for one...

We still have dukes and lesser peers. A duke, as Trollope knew very well, was special but also in a rural community were marquesses,...

It’s not surprising that before the arrival of Christianity people gave thought to the process of creation in the arts. Nine goddesses...

Things get better – or should do – as they serve their time and benefit from experience. A Ford model T was in its day the best car...

World War Two in the Pacific was a huge-scale activity. In terms of tonnage, fleets and supplies it was unprecedented. But for every...

We sometimes forget that the biblical documents have an ancient lineage and it is difficult to find a meaning in them. This is true of...

What began in Eden developed in Uz and continued in Babylon. We have to remember that the book of Daniel has its own characteristics and...

Place-wise and page-wise Uz followed Eden. ‘Job’ is a major poem. The first words from Job (chapter 3) curse the day he was born. His...

What word best describes the talk in Genesis 3? Conversation? More like interrogation. Have you noticed the question and answer form? Not...

Selection is all. Whether it is choosing a life-partner, launching one career rather than another, or becoming a vegan, we have to...

Like Buffalo Bill or Crocodile Dundee, Joel is remembered for his confrontation with wild animals. Not mammals or reptiles. Locusts. Joel...

From the beginning Jesus encountered people at two levels: (1: the mass meeting) and (2: the individual conversation). A reader can...

In the days when everybody learned the collect of the day and the catechism the three enemies of mankind were clear: the world, the flesh...

My daily newspaper is fond of analysing the speeches of politicians and decoding their true intent. Frequently blameless generalities...

We still have the FA Cup, the Grand National, the Test matches, the Boat Race, pennies (though we now call them pence) but we have lost...