A few weeks ago, on a perfect autumn day, I took the train to Cambridge and cycled a rambling, rolling 84 miles home to London. I know what you’re thinking. Well, it represented some solid exercise and I had coffee with my friend Robert, whom I seldom see. And, as is ever the way, it …
This is a sermon preached at St Olave Hart Street. Jesus said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” …
Last year, I did a Bad Thing. It started as a Good Thing, but like so many Good Things, it ended badly: I set the wrong programme on the washing machine. Now, I am the washer, dryer and putter-away of washing in our house. I change the beds, pair the socks and fold the pants. …
Just before my fifteenth birthday, I went to America with the Scouts. We were supposed to go to Iran for the World Jamboree but they had a revolution instead and so we ended up in Fort Worth, Texas. Like you do. It was a world of hitherto unknown pleasures. Baseball. Tacos. Rodeos. And there was …
A couple of weeks ago, for a miniature holiday, my partner Susie and I went to stay in a caravan at Ringstead Bay in Dorset, lent to us by my kind friend Vickey. It poured on the way down and when we stopped, mid-afternoon, at Tolpuddle, to pay homage to the Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported to …
The bike ride that resulted in the Pause for Thought script Poem 30.10.20, happened on September 28th and I recorded it on twitter as I rode. This is the thread, with the images I posted en route and this is the route. I have a manuscript written in the early 1820s by a clergyman named …
I drove across South London with my son Silas last night. I did not distinguish myself on the journey. Before we had got through Brixton it had become apparent to me that everyone else out driving that evening was an idiot; was thoughtless; was incompetent; was to be derided. I’m a terrible judge and cars …
A few months ago, a crack appeared in the ceiling at the bottom of our stairs. It was not a big crack and so, obviously, I did the Obvious Thing. I ignored it. Because that always works. Then, a few weeks ago, the crack started to widen. A Lot. And as it widened, the ceiling …
These last few months have been a time for sober reflection. By this, I don’t mean that I stare mournfully in the mirror every morning wondering why running versus beer is always a win for beer (although I do). Nor do I mean that over the past few months I have always been sober (for …
After my daughter Esther came back from Glastonbury last year, we went for a drink and she told me about her weekend. But because Esther is supernaturally organized, this did not mean stumbling through hazy recollections of half-remembered acts, but rather a list, compiled in real time, of everything she and her friends had seen, …