Sister, where are you? – Clover Stroud mourns her beloved sibling
‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for…
Bring back communion wine
Don’t deny me my communion wine
The bittersweet truth about homemade marmalade
The spectrum of ‘bestowing homemade gifts on one’s friends’ ranges from giving to foisting. Pure giving is when you make…
Dancing on Terence Conran’s grave
‘Who,’ asks Stephen Bayley, in one of the ‘S.B’ chapters of this irresistibly spiky co-written book, ‘could countenance working for…
The time is up for long films
Why do films have to go on for so long?
Don’t pity me for living in London
Don’t pity me for living in London
Let hymn in: the silencing of indoor singing is senseless
The silencing of indoor singing is senseless
Learning to listen: Sarah Sands goes in search of spirituality
It was the 13th-century wall of a ruined Cistercian nunnery at the far end of her garden in Norfolk that…
The man behind Justin Welby
The man behind the Archbishop
Britain's choirs are facing oblivion
Britain’s choirs are facing oblivion. Yet they’re also terrified of returning. One story explains why. Picture this innocent choral-society scene…
My mother — as I remember her best
Nine cups of milky Nescafé Gold Blend a day; a low-tar cigarette smouldering; a hot-water-bottle always on her lap; the…
Coronavirus has started a new age of online snooping
This is proving a rich period for those of us who can’t resist snooping into the interiors of other people’s…
It’s time for the word ‘Continental’ to make a comeback
How the word lost its glamour
Duty, devotion and lack of self-pity — Anne Glenconner is an example to us all
Trained from a young age to be self-effacing, never liking to be the centre of attention, having been traumatised for…
Dangly earrings, hugs and controversy: here comes the new Bishop of Dover
East Kent is bracing itself. Its Church of England clergy are enjoying their last quiet months before Rose Hudson-Wilkin arrives…
Entertaining Iris Murdoch – for months on end
If you know your Peter Conradi from your Peter J. Conradi, you’ll also know that the former is foreign editor…
Are the Dead Ringers audience told to laugh?
Nine on a Thursday morning is University Hour for those of us who don’t commute to an office every day.…
Thank God for hymns!
Before embarking on this hymn to hymns, I’ll admit that hymn-enthusiasts feel a slight sense of anticlimax on Easter Sunday,…
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
I’ve had enough of induction hobs — and I know I’m not the only one
It was a close-run thing for my friend who’s having a new kitchen installed in her house in Chiswick. After…
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Soon that’s all we’ll be able to do
I like a book where you don’t think you’re going to be interested in the subject, but then find it’s…
High and mighty
In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs C.F. Alexander, author of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, all of…
The joys of ‘Neglexit’: not being governed has its good points
The new political buzzword is ‘Neglexit’: the state of being in which, because the government is so wrapped up in…
A suffragette sequel: Old Baggage, by Lissa Evans reviewed
Lissa Evans has had a good idea for her new novel. It’s ‘suffragettes: the sequel’. She sets her story not…
I dread the extinction of boys’ choirs
One by one, cathedrals have succumbed to the inevitable. In blazes of publicity, with front-page photographs of girls in cassocks…
