our friends the iconoclasts

Fascinating programme on Beyond Belief about new developments in Mecca and Medina. I was talking the other day with my friends Afif and Nawal and we were looking at pictures of Mecca.  They were showing me pictures of the crowds of pilgrims around the Kabba and in the background you could see incredibly tall skyscrapers …

Greeks and Bhuddism

The children have been reading, no, devouring, the Percy Jackson books.  The central theme of these is that there are in this world ‘real’ Greek Gods and more particularly their children, demi-Gods, who inhabit both the normal mundane world and the super-powered world of the Gods. Now being a lover of Greek myths I found …

Saddleworth, Brass, Morris and Rushes

Today, Saturday, we went to Greenfield, one of the Saddleworth villages.  Our friends there are married and both come from the villages and we visited them on the occasion of the Saddleworth Rushcart.  I won’t go into that suffice to say that a large group of Morris men process and dance around the various villages …

Walsingham – You Only Live Once…

It wasn’t difficult to find our way to Walsingham but when we arrived it wasn’t clear what we should do. I had persuaded my partner and our three children to come with me to visit Walsingham. My partner was interested in going but the three children had asked me “what is it?”. It’s the site …