A former Labour MP, in Britain, Ann Keen, certainly achieved a personal and political goal this past year of 2021. She succeeded in getting the Westminster government to announce an inquiry into forced adoptions in Britain between the 1950s and the 1970s. Mrs Keen, former parliamentary secretary to Gordon Brown, has also called for an official…
Yes, for some people it looks as though it might be an austere, even a lonely and isolating Christmas. I’m not a fan of some of these State-imposed restrictions occasioned by what seems to me an over-interpretation of health measures; but, as realists say nowadays, it is what it is. And you can never beat…
We can expect the literary focus of 2022 to be the centenary of the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses: but an equally important milestone, especially for Christians, was the appearance of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land in 1922. This long poem burst upon the world with considerable fanfare, as Eliot’s biographer Richard Ellmann put it,…
Sometimes it takes a long arc of history for a remarkable person and his work to be fully acknowledged and recognised. A hundred years after he founded the Legion of Mary in Dublin, Frank Duff is now seen as not merely a devout and altruistic man, but enlightened and well before his time in his…
I had a conversation with an old rake the other day about past times and past sins, and their inclination to surface in the present. It occurred after a rather public accusation made by the Tory MP, Caroline Noakes, that she had been “groped” by Stanley Johnson – father of British prime minister Boris –…
They’ve dubbed it, sarcastically, ‘Pray to Stay’: that’s the description given to some refugees from the Middle East and North Africa who have converted to Christianity in Britain. The implication is that the 200 or so asylum seekers who have become Christians may have done so for manipulative reasons: so as to have a better…
Dara Ó Briain is surely one of the most successful of Irish comedians, mostly living and working in Britain, though currently on tour in Ireland. He’s the genial but sharp host of the hugely engaging Mock the Week satirical programme on BBC. Dara is also an award-winning debater and a brilliant mathematician who has partnered…
Because there may well be shortages in the shops come December – and even with on-line shopping – some prudent folks already have all their Christmas shopping, bar last-minute food, arranged, wrapped, and ready to deliver. A late Thanksgiving interrupted the space for Christmas shopping” There has been a world-wide disruption of supply chains, largely,…
Katharine Birbalsingh is a renowned British educator and headmistress of a school she founded: she is reckoned to be among the 20 most influential individuals in British education, and was recently appointed chairwoman of the Social Mobility Commission. There was a storm of protest, and others who served on the Social Mobility Commission rejected Ms…
In the current James Bond movie – No Time to Die – the villain, name of Safin, is played by an actor showing facial scarring (although Rami Malek’s facial markings are purely the product of the make-up department). And he’s not the first Bond villain to be a ‘scarface’. And it’s certainly unchristian to imply…