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