Category history
The Parrot, the Cage and the Pulpit
The tower pictured above is of the Tyndale Monument. This is situated north of Bristol, on the Cotswolds escarpment, above the village of North Nibley. The tower was built in Victorian times, for it was only then that people realised the extent of Tyndale’s influence over, and contribution… Continue reading The Parrot, the Cage and the Pulpit
The Parrot Seeks a Cage
Here is that parrot again, bird of paradise, thundering from his cage in rhyme royal, claiming his liberty to speak his truth. He fears for his young and sees no true or worthy leaders anywhere, merely creatures of self-interest seeking their own gain from our flounderings… Continue reading The Parrot Seeks a Cage
Parrot Speaks of Law and Dust
The caged parrot keeps talking and seems to have quite a lot to say. His original author John Skelton was alive during the Reformation, another time in which England broke away from Europe in various ways. For the Reformation was not
Parrot speaks of a Pit Bull
Paul Dacre, longtime editor of the Daily Mail, a frantic and irresponsible source of Brexit propaganda, who used his right to free speech and his platform for delivering it, much less for the truth and the public good than for a chance just to bully and… Continue reading Parrot speaks of a Pit Bull
Augustin Doing Life
“Augustin Doing Life” is the title of a poem I wrote eight years ago. The Augustin of the title is Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of the much better known and also more fanatical Maximilien Robespierre, both swept along by the upheavals of the French Revolution, and quite… Continue reading Augustin Doing Life
Dame Julian of Norwich
Dame Julian of Norwich was an anchoress. She lived in the fourteenth century and wrote “Revelations of Divine Love.”
She “good counsel did give” to her visitors, one of whom was Margery Kempe who wrote an autobiography, a rare and perhaps unique thing to do… Continue reading Dame Julian of Norwich
Just Words
Forced to witness and live, day after day, this nation’s fraught and inept and demented progress towards Brexit – the unforgiveable false step, waste and wanton irrelevance of it, the tedium, obsessive delinquency, delusion, shame, the sheer disgraceful wrong and disaster of it – I retreat into words, not just for some slight relief, but… Continue reading Just Words
The History of the United Kingdom
Click here for a summary of this piece, consisting of just over 700 words.
Are You Sitting Comfortably ?
The history of the United Kingdom (whose every seam is under terrible stretch and strain just now) continues so fast, so scattered, so hurt, so incoherent, so unguided and ill-advised, that it is hard… Continue reading The History of the United Kingdom
