Quite by chance I stumbled on a web site devoted to the band Madness. The site has pulled together whole paragraphs of quotes and weaved it into a sort of history of the band. Years ago I saw them live

Saint John Paul’s Day 22 October 2020  Give us leaders again like Pope John Paul II, Reagan, Thatcher, the cry goes up this Saint John Paul’s Day 22 October 2020. Yet the lesson of St John Paul is one of

THE CHEERFUL THESSALONIANS It remains one of the hardest orders in the New Testament: Be happy, always happy. Give thanks in all circumstances. Even when imprisoned, widowed, or ill? Saint Paul is raising us up above the concerns of mortals.

To spell out the wonder of the birth of the Christ child in Bethlehem, John starts his gospel with the originator of all that is and will be. For we are not given to worship an idea or a legend,

If the Beatles, ‘All You Need Is Love,’ summed up the sixties then Radio Caroline’s founder, Ronan O’Rahilly, 1940-2020, embodied the era. Although pirate radio started from a ship, the Cheeta, anchored off the south Swedish coast in 1958, it