"They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand." For the next few days I would keep clear of Rive-de-Gier, in fact the whole of France, until the Nutella riots die down. You may have read in this morning’s media that Intermarché has slashed (should I say gashed?) the price of this chocolate hazelnut spread from €4.50 to €1.40. The result? Carnage, as crowds descend on their local store. Police were called in Ostricourt in northern France, where a fight had broken out. Some stores risked the wrath of their customers by limiting their purchase to just three pots. One stunned Intermarché employee did his best.

Hola a todos! To be fair, we were warned: “There are strong side winds at Tenerife-South airport.” But we may not all have been emotionally prepared! So we made our approach and as the landing gear lowered, you could feel our plane being tossed about, up and down, side to side. At that point I immediately felt guilty about enjoying all those YouTube clips of planes having difficulty landing in strong crosswinds. Two women behind me were laughing very loudly. It’s wonderful to have a sense of humour, I thought. Looking out of the window I could see that we were almost there – until suddenly at just under 1000 feet the engine noise changed. Our pilot had decided to abort the landing.

This is a family blog and so you will be relieved I will not be quoting President Trump verbatim in reference to his opinion of the good people of Haiti, El Salvador and various African countries. It was the lead story on the BBC Website earlier this morning: Trump ‘in crude Oval Office outburst about migrants’ Here I quote (almost) “Why are we having all these people from s* countries come here?” The BBC gives the full quote whereas most American news outlets used the word “blank” instead. It reminds me when the Nixon tapes were published in that age of innocence in 1971/72 we were shocked to see how often those in the White House used the phrase “expletive deleted”. Maybe it was the p

“I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us,” observes evangelist Joel Osteen. He continues: “When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you're a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.” God certainly used the situation my daughter Sharon found herself some eight years ago. The evidence for this is seen in next Thursday’s SPCK book launch in our Ministry Centre. In fact, I only really heard the full story from her interview on Premier Radio last month – which I imagine is the norm for most parents! For in the space of just 14 months Sharon had three daugh