(No volunteers to review "Endgame"?) A few more miscellaneous thoughts from the returned tourist: Bowing. Yes, people do bow, especially to their customers. I did see two elderly women, friends, bowing repeatedly to each other when saying goodbye, but on the whole the bowing didn't look awkward...
In the book of Genesis, Jacob is a patriarch, father of twelve sons, who are the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. He also had a daughter, Dinah, whose story (Genesis chapter 34) is not often preached on. She was visiting some local female...
I am even more conscious than usual that I am writing from a position of almost total ignorance. Before leaving this country for a holiday in Japan, I read one book of history, and looked up Shinto on Wikipedia. I then spent two weeks looking at...
More about Japan later. But now for something rather different...
So, we’re back, and during our absence Notre Dame burned and 350+ people were murdered in Sri Lanka, but the UK didn’t leave the EU. Our trip to Japan was fascinating in many ways. It was partly a visit to see family, but then morphed by...
The Blogger is leaving on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Far East (Japan), so there will be no posts on 12th, 19th or 26th April. Just in case any of my readers is connected to the criminal underworld, I should point out that we are not...
I know we're all obsessing about Brexit at the moment. But here is something completely different. If I asked my readers what they knew about King Richard III, I suspect the answer would be something like this: “He was the last king of England before the...
Unlike Christmas, which has a predictable and lengthy countdown, Lent always seems to take me by surprise. It is also a season that even in church is a bit “take it or leave it/do your own thing.” Many Christians don’t do anything, except maybe eat...
(The planned post on Lent has been set aside for this even more topical one.) In the current confusion about Brexit, I’ve been struck by many things, but one is personal. (None of what follows relates in any way to ordinary friends and acquaintances who voted Leave,...
(Thank you for your kind comments and encouragement following last week's post. Hmm.) This week I’m again comparing the Church of England with the Church of Scotland – looking on the lighter side. (Please remember that my experience of the Kirk is now 22 years old,...