-
Recent Posts
- Afghanistan
- Archbishop of Canterbury
- Barack Obama
- Bible
- Bologna
- Brexit
- Buckinghamshire
- Cambridge
- Charles III
- Charles Prince of Wales
- Congress
- Conservatism
- Conservative
- Conservatives
- Coronation of Elizabeth II
- culture
- cyberwarfare
- David Cameron
- debt crisis
- democracy
- Democrats
- Diana Norman
- Ed Miliband
- Edward Gibbon
- Elie Wiesel
- Elizabeth II
- Europe
- European Union
- faith
- freedom
- French Revolution
- Geoffrey Fisher
- globalisation
- God
- Goethe
- Hanslope
- Harold Macmillan
- House of Windsor
- India
- Israel
- Julius Caesar
- Kate Middleton
- Labour
- Le Marais
- Liberal Democrats
- Local government
- Louis XIV
- Louis XV
- memories
- Michael Ramsey
- modern theology
- Monarchy
- Napoleon
- Nick Clegg
- Pakistan
- Paris
- Prince William of Wales
- Project Gutenberg
- Prudence Andrew
- public service cuts
- religion
- Republican
- Rio de Janeiro
- Sarah Palin
- science and religion
- solitude
- Stendhal
- Sudan
- Tea Party
- Thomas Jefferson
- Wall Street
- war
- William Tyndale
- women
- Yemen
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Heaven and Hell
A famous joke, probably politically incorrect, first told to me by an Armenian businessman in East Africa 27 or so years ago: HEAVEN is where the police are British, the cooks are French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and … Continue reading
Posted in Quotations
Tagged Europe, heaven, hell, jokes, national stereotypes, political incorrectness
Leave a comment
Eh bien! C’est moi!
Political invective knows no boundaries, of course, but Latin countries bring their own particular spices to the feast. Here is a list of things Talleyrand was accused of being at various stages of his long and lucky life (1754-1838), shown … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Alexander I, French Revolution, Louis-Philippe, Napoleon, Restoration, Voltaire
Leave a comment
Poems by Rumi
Until last month, I confess, I had never even heard of the Persian poet and Sufi mystic Jalal ad-Dïn Muhammad Rumi, ‘Mawlana‘ (1207-1273). I am indebted to Estelle Gillingham for her recently quoting the great philosopher online. From Rumi’s extensive … Continue reading
Posted in Belief, faith and religion, Love and friendship, Quotations, Uncategorized
Tagged Mawlānā, Persian literature, Rumi, Sufi, Sufism
Leave a comment
Army changes
Looking at the list published today of UK army units to be merged or abolished, I reckon that they have all been here before: during the Cardwell reforms of the mid-nineteenth century, the amalgamations of the late 1920s, the next … Continue reading
Posted in Politics and current affairs
Tagged British Army, Coldstream Guards, Green Howards
Leave a comment