What’s changed in my lifetime? Almost everything
November 7, 2019
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I seem to have had a quiet life. Yes, it began with deciding the proximity of the next Nazi bomb
When it comes to sermons, short is beautiful
September 26, 2019
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I recently attended a weekly Mass in my parish – to commemorate an important family occasion. My housekeeper came with
What I wish I’d known about bereavement
August 1, 2019
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It may seem strange to write a column about the experience of bereavement, but I learnt so much from it
A guide to demography that everyone should read
July 11, 2019
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The Human Tide By Paul Morland John Murray, 352pp, £25/$28 Demography, as a subject, does not excite many minds, yet
How much free will do we really have?
June 20, 2019
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I like to think of myself as a reasonably intelligent person. After all, I have had a long life, following
How to read a book in five minutes
May 23, 2019
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Some 50 years ago my son came to me for help. He was preparing for his A-level history examination. But
Poetry and science are both rooted in imagination
May 16, 2019
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The Poetry and Music of Science By Tom McLeish OUP, 384pp, £25/$35 This book attracted my eye because I combine
Do you have hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia?
May 2, 2019
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Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia means a fear of long words. I can cope with sesquipedalian, which means containing long words, because I can
James Clerk Maxwell: Behind the groundbreaking equations, a firm faith
March 28, 2019
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Professor Maxwell’s Duplicitous Demon By Brain Clegg Icon Books, 304pp, £16.99/$25 Names like Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton spring easily
Is meat about to get the chop?
March 21, 2019
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If, like me, you have millennial granddaughters, you will have encountered vegetarianism. What several years ago was regarded as an
When was the last time you set aside an hour for self-examination?
February 28, 2019
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Before he was elected pope, Joseph Ratzinger spoke of Socrates as “in a certain respect the prophet of Jesus Christ”.
How to free your brain
February 7, 2019
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Why is the first paragraph of this column so important? That is easy to answer: if the first paragraph sounds