Dangly earrings, hugs and controversy: here comes the new Bishop of Dover
East Kent is bracing itself. Its Church of England clergy are enjoying their last quiet months before Rose Hudson-Wilkin arrives…
Entertaining Iris Murdoch – for months on end
If you know your Peter Conradi from your Peter J. Conradi, you’ll also know that the former is foreign editor…
Are the Dead Ringers audience told to laugh?
Nine on a Thursday morning is University Hour for those of us who don’t commute to an office every day.…
Thank God for hymns!
Before embarking on this hymn to hymns, I’ll admit that hymn-enthusiasts feel a slight sense of anticlimax on Easter Sunday,…
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
I’ve had enough of induction hobs — and I know I’m not the only one
It was a close-run thing for my friend who’s having a new kitchen installed in her house in Chiswick. After…
Dreaming of a white Christmas? Soon that’s all we’ll be able to do
I like a book where you don’t think you’re going to be interested in the subject, but then find it’s…
High and mighty
In this 200th anniversary of the birth of Mrs C.F. Alexander, author of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, all of…
The joys of ‘Neglexit’: not being governed has its good points
The new political buzzword is ‘Neglexit’: the state of being in which, because the government is so wrapped up in…
A suffragette sequel: Old Baggage, by Lissa Evans reviewed
Lissa Evans has had a good idea for her new novel. It’s ‘suffragettes: the sequel’. She sets her story not…
I dread the extinction of boys’ choirs
One by one, cathedrals have succumbed to the inevitable. In blazes of publicity, with front-page photographs of girls in cassocks…
Couldn’t Diana Evans’s fretful couples just shut up and deal with it?
My husband started reading Diana Evans’s third novel, Ordinary People, the day after I’d finished it. Three days later, I…
A tale of two Sarahs: the cuddly bishop vs the terrifying cardinal
If you’re looking for a snapshot of the state of global Christianity today, a good place to start would be…
Lucy Mangan has enough comic energy to power the National Grid
After three hot-water-bottle-warmed evenings of highly satisfying bedtime reading, I can confirm that, even in a world where Francis Spufford’s…
Mission impossible? The C of E’s attempt to woo new members
If you work for the Church of England in any capacity, from Archbishop of Canterbury to parish flower-arranger, how do…
How can I prevent my husband from burning all my post?
If you don’t yet watch Gogglebox on Channel 4, start doing so now. Far from making you despise our couch-potato…
What can we learn from Jeremy Bentham’s pickled head?
Under the central dome of UCL — an indoor crossroads where hordes of students come and go on their way…
Descent into hell
It’s awful, but the surname Rausing (once synonymous only with the Tetrapak fortune) now summons up a terrible stench in…
Blue plaque blues
One of the great distinctions and pleasures of British life has been devalued by cheap imitations
One club, no hearts
Not a single line of this highly distinctive memoir happens out of doors. All of it takes place in rooms:…
The price of a cathedral
Deans are facing tough decisions to keep their beautiful buildings in good order
About a boy
A boy, a car, a journey, a question: the first sentence of Elizabeth Day’s new novel goes like this: From…
Why ‘my’?
There’s a plague of first-person advertising
Big heads
Private-school ‘superheads’ are wonderful for publicity.They may not be so good for teaching
One holy mess
This novel, John Irving’s 14th, took the sheen off my Christmas, and here are the reasons. The comments on…
