Yet another eccentricity from the Church of England. Yesterday I was privileged to conduct the wedding of Mark and Becky at St Mary’s Church, Whitewell, a lovely whitewashed church outside Whitchurch in the Diocese of Chester. What makes St Mary’s unusual – if not unique – is that this Church of England church is actually situated in Wales, in the county borough of Wrecsam no less. Clearly, there must be some history here. Rather like the northern boundary of Christ Church, A

This week I have been doing battle with bureaucracy, on three fronts no less. If I simply say, Ryanair customer service, your heart immediately goes out to me. That was the first front. Jacqui and I were due to have a few days away in Riga but, sadly, the daughter travelling out with us suddenly contracted shingles — an eventuality covered by our travel insurance. Some interesting info for you. You cannot cancel your flights on Ryanair, which seems strange. Instead, if you

“Your grades don’t define your ability; and what people say about you doesn’t define who you are.” So concludes Nicky Gumbel, of Alpha fame. This is especially apt for my family. Wonderfully, after two months of anxious waiting, all four of our granddaughters sitting A-levels this year made the university of their choice. So congratulations to (in chronological order) Rose, Kate, Ana and Joy! I well recall my own anxious wait, some 59 years ago. At the time it seemed as thoug

We live in dangerous times. Over the last few days—and even again this morning—I’ve been receiving warning emails from a whole variety of Christian agencies. It seems that their third-party database provider, Beacon, has suffered a data breach. As one email warned: “This breach does put you at greater risk of being targeted for fraud and phishing attempts.” So who is Beacon, and why is it so important? Well, it seems that Beacon is a London-based software company which suppli