Brian Draper

"The speed of the love of god, walks." says the theologian Kosuke Koyama. 18/9/23

Glimpse of wild bird can lift and transport us to another world, became guests to stay connected with fellow creatures, and sense our roles within this different world of theirs, and god's. 30/1/23

I love sir Cliff Richard said this week of the time when he guided Dame Vera Lynn to the stage through crowds of battalions for the 50th celebration of VE Day in 1995. They were reaching out to touch and get a smile from Vera, he said, I heard the words, "God Bless You", "Thank you", "We love you." Of course, many of those first hearts to be captured by the forces of sweethearts, have long since gone ahead of her. But the fact that her most iconic song, 'When We Will Meet Again' is cherished, not just by the class of 38, but by their children's children, shows the power of a song to move us.

I wonder what your favourite song is and where it takes you. I ask because yesterday's papers reported a study of more than 150 thousand songs, which found that sunny outlook of early pop has given a way to a more forlorn landscape, they analyse lyrics of top 100 selling songs in US for each year from 1965 as well as global hits. They noticed consistent decline the use of positive words such as Love and Joy, and consistent rise in words such as Hate and Pain.

I confess I've been ambivalent when it comes to Rugby, partly because my school made me play instead of football, which I thought is pure snobery at the time. It didn't help either I injured my neck scarily when the scrum collapsed.