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End Of Watch – David Ayer: Dumb Derring Duo lose a war.

Tweet      End Of Watch  – David Ayer End of Watch is David Ayer’s much praised follow-up to his equally critically approved Training Day. It is action-packed, often tensely exciting, rattles along at a furious pace and looks like being a massive box-office hit. It is also in my view a thoroughly bad movie […]

Silver Linings Playbook – phoney, patronising but with great Lawrentian moments

Tweet      Silver Linings Playbook – David O Russell The mesmeric Jennifer Lawrence almost makes this phoney movie work – but not quite. For me at least. Claudia Winkleman on BBC’s now equally unwatchable Twittery Film 2012 loved it; while her mate on the show, Danny ‘Boy’ Leigh hated it. Reluctantly, I’m with Danny […]

Women Bishops – A complete no-brainer rejected by lay women

Tweet      Women Bishops   Who shall chronicle the fevered incestuous petty politics of the present Anglican Church now that C.P.Snow is no longer with us? If women Priests are today justifiably, angry, frustrated and disappointed; gay Christians must be in despair. This dispute has about as much to do with the exemplary life […]

The Abuse of Children – a problem for men and women

Tweet     The Abuse of Children   The protection of children from all kinds of abuse is a responsibility we all share as parents or good neighbours and citizens. Beyond that it is the business of law-makers, police and social agencies. But conspicuously absent in the national debate about this pattern of behaviour are […]

Trust The Wind – Poem: like the eagle obey nature to command her

Tweet  One day of the condor Trust The Wind I offered you the chance to fly the high places where the cool clean air bathes the unstepped unspoilt heights in the purity of life Where love in the ecstasy of weightlessness can breathe the eternity of a timeless present shared You flew trusting me wing […]

Poem: 12th of November – next day thoughts on Remembrance Day

Tweet      12th of November Too many flags Too many wreaths flying and furled circles and sheaths symbols of power and Babel’s tower Too many widows Too much unsolaced grief Too many pipes Too many drums militant skirl bellicose beat marching in lines laying down mines Too wedded to war To demand that peace […]

Remembrance Day – Another kind of respect

Tweet                         Forget Me Not   Remembrance Day Etched in unforgiving stone The Glorious Dead implacable stands alone washed in rain and bitter tears blood red poppies do not atone across the bitter years the sadness and the loss As each November nears we mourn our honoured dead with military pomp and easy prayers power […]

Performance Related Pay – Expensive, misguided and ineffective

Tweet    PERFORMANCE RELATED PAY Performance related pay presents expensive, counter-productive practical problems. It also offers a superficial concept of reward and recognition and a profoundly misguided understanding of the personal and social value of work. It denies and rejects the extraordinary power of unity and self-motivation in a common cause so inspirationally demonstrated during […]

Poem: Memorial Ground Zero – 26th October 2012 24 hours before Hurricane Sandy Hit

Tweet        Memorial Ground Zero– 26th October 2012 So many many names so many many lives no more Names of every race every faith and every creed make this place this precious space satisfy a sacred need There was a Jesus a Mohammad too the paradox of belief perplexes us faith that sustains […]