I know that this is an outrageous claim to make but I think I was rickrolled before anyone else. At the very least I was in the first cohort. Rickrolled? I’m sure you will be aware that Rick Astley’s 1987 rock anthem Never Gonna Give You Up has passed one billion views on YouTube. Yes, one billion: i.e. 1,002,289,643 just now. You can check for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ It was one of my daughters who alerted me to this astonishing achieve

Why in this heat did the father run to welcome his returning son? I was discussing with one of my daughters how to communicate the Good News of Jesus in our culture where sin is now seen as no big deal. Rather than sin, she suggested, how about shame? She may have been closer to the world of the New Testament than she realised. This is the view of an excellent series on honour and shame in BRF Guidelines, written by a theologian with a Third World perspective. For th

What’s it like to be a guinea pig? Well, we shall soon find out. As a nation we are, in the words of yesterday’s Nature briefing, about to embark on “an unprecedented public-health experiment.” This coming Monday the government are ending legal restrictions for mitigating the spread of Covid-19. All this despite steeply rising infections in our partially vaccinated population. This bold step has huge international ramifications. “The world has its eyes on the UK,” sa

For those of you who collect hashtags, #SouthgateMustGo no doubt will become an item of rare value, one which will cause much puzzlement to future generations. It’s difficult to locate when this particular hashtag was last used but most searches would suggest 19 June, soon after the goalless draw against Scotland. Here is a good example from Danny, although this being a family-friendly blog I have omitted some of his adjectives: SOUTHGATE MUST GO !!!! Absolutely * awful in a

I stood at the penalty spot facing the Kop to look up at the goal just 12 yards in front of me, and marvelled: “How could anyone miss at this distance?” (Yes, I did – and I will leave you to marvel how this actually could have happened!) Well, tell that to Gareth Bale – and to all those penalty takers who simply miss the 24 x 8 foot goal just in front of them altogether, in his case in the Euro game against Turkey by miles. Even when there is a goalkeeper, the odds must