Humpty Dumpty

‘What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?’ So wrote W.H. Davies, the poetic tramp. It’s yet another case...

‘Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there,’ sighed Browning. ‘God. I will pack and take a train / And get me to England once again,’...

‘Humpty, are you there?’ I thought I would sound out Humpty on names for things. I couldn’t catch his attention. He wasn’t on his wall,...

Humpty, do you know the meaning of that lovely old word ‘Saskatchewan’? ‘No, but I guess it’s indigenous.’ ‘Good guess. It comes from a...

Church-planting is here to stay. It has proved itself to be a mission tool that works. In a sense it is nothing new. It is what...

‘Humpty, have you ever heard a sermon from a preacher flat on the deck?’ ‘No, and I’m not likely to. Why do you ask?’ ‘I’m thinking of...

If you feel a bout of nostalgia coming on, go to Tintagel. In that curious seaside Cornish nook you may feel the presence of one of the...

If Philip Larkin was right when he said that sexual intercourse began in 1963, it may well be true that the puritan tradition started...

Having lived my life so far with a complete misunderstanding, I am hurrying to catch up. This is not easy. All along I have accepted the...

‘One day we shall see face to face.’ So says Paul (1 Corinthians 13.12). Our present puzzlement, we are told, will be replaced by...

‘Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note As his corse to the rampart we hurried.’ So begins a memorable poem on the death of Sir John...

People who lived six or seven hundred years ago weren’t so very different from us. We have only to look at Chaucer’s pilgrims. They were...

Painting by numbers is one thing. Painting by Rembrandt is something else. Yet in both cases a worker with brush and pigment is seeing...

When a country opts for a national religion whether it is Hinduism, Islam or Christianity there is a deal to be done. In the case of an...

If you are going to be an actor, you must be good at pretence. Your true self must for a short period of time be replaced by a new self....