Sell the Vatican

The scientists are now virtually unanimous.  Unless we can reduce carbon emissions by 45%  by 2030 we have no hope of zero by 2050.  If we fail we will bequeath unimagineable climate horror upon our children.  You can’t imagine...

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Passmore again

From my autobiography.  Is this fair?  How distorted is my take on Passmore?                                                                                   And then came Passmore.  Where Trafford had sought to make Downside great through the OTC, Passmore was going to do it through academic achievement. He was huge both in body...

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Passmore

From my autobiography. Is this fair? And then came Passmore.  Where Trafford had sought to make Downside great through the OTC, Passmore was going to do it through academic achievement. He was huge both in body and presence, the...

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He Made a Lot of it Up

We know that Neville Cardus made a lot of it up. But would we really want to be without such gems as congratulating Dick Tildesley on sportingly admitting the ball had touched the ground before he caught it “Westhoughton...

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How they loved bores

How both Proust and Shakespeare adored bores.  Proust savours M.de Norpois as if he is the dish, when Norpois comes to dinner, that Norpois himself admires:”That is a thing you don’t get in a chophouse, not even in the best...

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Finding a Wife

All through this time I had hoped to meet somebody I might marry but I gradually began to realise that I had little chance of doing so in West Wales.  Jobs were so hard to come by that if you...

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Logos

Logos. ‘The Word was with God and was God’.   St John’s Logos is a word drawn from Greek philosophy.  It means the rationality of the universe, science in other words. And, indeed, we easily forget how remarkable the absolute truths of science...

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Vote for Me

Of course I am well aware that the sweeping tax cuts I am proposing will lead to even more inflation that will gobble up any increased growth, but fortunately I am blessed with that extremely useful political skill of...

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A great man brought down by dwarves but chiefly by himself.

A  great man brought  down by dwarves but mostly by himself. I believe I have some inkling of what it is like to be Boris Johnson because I used to be a compulsive liar too.  As in both our cases, this condition is...

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Cézanne

One of my favourite books is Jonah Lehrer’s Proust Was a Neuro-Scientist.  Jonah Lehrer’s theme is that artists have often intuited truths that scientists have later shown to be the case.  My favourite chapter is the one on Cézanne.  The impressionists had learnt...

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