Wonderful! Back to my regular Friday morning routine. Responsive keyboard, fast internet and no-one trying to steal a look at my screen. So here goes. Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. Speaking at a special commemoration yesterday evening Archbishop Justin said: “The culture of alternative facts, of post-truth, of collusion needs to be challenged at every level and in every conversation and debate in this country if indeed we are to be a place of safety and healing for those fleeing tyranny and cruelty.” This Tuesday a long-standing friend over from New York for business took Jacqui and I out for a meal in a very smart restaurant in Manchester. (That’s my kind of friend). We lo

Well, folks, it’s homeward bound! Back to my responsive desktop and to a reasonably fast internet speed, same challenge but this time a plane to catch - in three hours time. No pressure there I continue to be amazed at the speed of international travel nowadays. As a boy my father took us on holiday to Costa Brava - overland, by train. Our return journey would take an unbroken 36 hours. For a child it took forever as I peered at the passing French countryside in early dawn. Field after field, town after town, on and on. Now it’s a case of lunch in Los Cristianos as we soak up the sun and then, before we know it, beans on toast in the chill of a dark Aughton evening as the rain lashes the

A hospital overwhelmed, patients on trollies even along the entrance corridor. So this lunchtime we pick Cliff up to visit Mary following surgery on her fractured elbow, relieved to hear that her condition is much better than we first feared following her fall on Monday. We take with us the prayers and best wishes of our church family along with get well cards and messages of support. She is in good heart. It's about 40 miles to Santa Cruz, to the Hospital de Nuestra Senora de la Candelaria along the only motorway in Tenerife. It's not just the NHS overwhelmed. I understand that the problem here has been an outbreak of pneumonia. "It was like being in a war zone," Mary reflected. It

Today is Friday. Normally that means Psalm 95 but today being Epiphany it is Psalm 100: O be joyful in the Lord, all the earth; Serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song. Each morning in church we say together Morning Prayer using a booklet curate Michael Follin put together in 2003 from the recently introduced Common Worship. Since then it has become part of my life. Of course, liturgy in many ways is out of favour. Certainly it doesn’t fit easily in our modern culture. It inhibits spontaneity, just saying out words from a book while your mind is elsewhere. However, an apt quote in defence of liturgy from my hero, Tom Wright: “The author chuckl