Churches are often structures that are built, or added onto over the period of hundreds or even a thousand years. What you see above is the door to the Ledbury Cathedral, and notice it has an arch that is apparently meant to look like a Norman arch (think Durham). When you go inside this cathedral you find a variety of things. For example, you discover the church was originally much smaller than it is now, because you find a gargoyle… Read more

While neither Worcester or Ledbury are timberbeam cities in the way Chester is, there are nonetheless various excellent examples of that sort of architecture in the two cities involves in this post. Above you see the old rectifying house. Now you might think this was a place where sinners received their correction, but actually it has to do with beer and its processing! From Ledbury we find a very interesting Boots the chemist (i.e. pharmacy) set in such a timberbeam… Read more

LINDISFARNE LITURGY Was it ever thus, then and there So no one need ask who, when and where The stones themselves cried out With the metal bells That God was in his heaven Though some were in their hells… Did it seem quite fixed, fashioned, formed So few would dare to query, quibble, quit The pilgrimage well-trodden Up the Dun Cow Lane To Cuthbert’s choired cathedral Saints sung the same refrain… From holy isle, aisle, I’ll Never look away, askance,… Read more

Worcester Cathedral may not be on the ‘great cathedrals of England tour’, but it is a special place. As you can see by the picture above, it is on the banks of the Severn River, much like Durham Cathedral is on the banks of the Wear. But Worcester Cathedral rests on a much more flat plain than does Durham, and it is not part of a Castle and Cathedral walled complex. One of the nice features one notices on entering… Read more

I was sitting in the lobby of John’s College reading the Times, not to be confused with the NY Times. No, this is just the Times. But even that Times has been changing. There are two immediately noticeable changes: 1) the format has gone magazine style on some days, and 2) there are actually color pictures and color graphics instead of just endless black and white words– (shock—- what is the world coming to?) The picture above gives you a… Read more

The novel which more than any other made Ian Rankin’s reputation was Black and Blue. It won the CWA Macallan Gold Dagger award for best crime fiction, and probably was the main thing that prompted the attempts to bring his novels to TV… not just once, but twice in the U.K. There is a reason of course why these novels do not translate so well to the North American scene. It is because, though they are clearly written, even telegraphically… Read more

Fast cars, car chases, smooth criminals. It sounds like the material for a Michael Jackson song and video. Only this is now the sixth blockbuster car flick in the franchise of F+F and this one is mostly set in Europe— Moscow, Spain, and primarily in London. Like the Bond franchises this series of movies thrives on visually stunning or exotic locations. Not to mention visually stunning and exotic humans of various species. And lest this movie does not finally whet… Read more

I was driving on New Circle Road, the ring road around the center of Lexington Kentucky, and was passed at 95 mph by a police car… no siren, no flashing lights, no nothing. Just speeding. It raised the question in my mind, to what degree do the police have the right to bend or even break the laws, and all the more so this question arises when we are not talking about an emergency. This is the sort of question… Read more

Having spent a good deal of my life being involved in music, in one way or another (listening, playing, going to concerts, selling records…. you name it) it does surprise me from time to time how seldom people think deeply about the effect music can and does have on the human heart or soul. Music, if we bother to listen intently and purposefully and with an open heart, reaches us in places that mere words cannot reach or touch, most… Read more

‘Getting mortal’— it’s an interesting phrase, and it recurs at various junctures in Ian Rankin’s sixth John Rebus crime novel— Mortal Causes. What it seems to mean is getting inebriated, inebriated enough that one loses one’s inhibitions and the true self, the self below the facade, below the surface of the skin is revealed. Getting mortal then is in one sense, going the way of all flesh. In another sense its undressing one’s real desires and thoughts in public. It’s… Read more