Humpty Dumpty

February has a bad reputation. It is often the sting in the tail of winter. February was a good month for French novelists. Hugo was born...

They come, those moments of magnificence. Fabergé Eggs, Rolls-Royces, Sistine chapel (only one of those). They set a standard, invite...

Those were the days. Old Etonian, gout-ridden master-wordsmith Henry Fielding gave London its first police force, the Bow Street Runners....

‘It is the will of God,’ says a friend and that is the end of the matter. He is speaking of a choice of policy, of a decision that has...

The Church of England marketing slogan ‘A Church Near You’ carries a wholesome emphasis on proximity. It carries the suggestion that the...

Once more we are obliged to consider statues. The name of Eric Gill (1882-1940) has come before us – and not for the best of reasons....

‘Whose head is this?’ asked Jesus (Matthew 22.20). Again, a seemingly innocent question deserving a peremptory answer. The peremptory...

That three-letter word continues to intrigue Paul. He might have turned to reptiles for help. But no. At this point (Romans 6.19) he uses...

‘I didn’t flinch, did I? Oh, I do hope I didn’t flinch.’ The young wife who said this to her midwife after her first confinement was...

It was famously said of the Schleswig-Holstein question that only three men ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who was dead, the...

Charles Wolfe is remembered for just one poem ‘The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna’. We might say the same of W.E. Henley and his...

Rightly, we expect dignity from those bearing responsibility in our Church. We do not expect bishops to be tearaways or tricksters. Nor...

After the years if tumult, volcanic, action and controversy Paul enjoyed a period of quite routine. The voices went silent, the passions...

‘But he doesn’t have anything on,’ said a little child. The monarch had been beguiled by two charlatans into thinking that they offered...

We like Dalmatians because of their spots. Carriage-dogs may be a thing of the past, along with the carriages they ran alongside but they...

And so it was that the prodigal son, his brother and father, lived happily for ever afterwards. Or did they? We are talking about a story...

Dream-time in the Bible? See Matthew chapter two. The three distinguished visitors evaded Herod’s executioners because they had had a...