I Shall Gasp And Pant

My morning run didn’t go as well as I had hoped. My hip was tight at the start, but that loosened up; the problem was breathing. I just couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, or oxygenate it rapidly enough to fuel a decent pace. Time was 10:38, and most of those seconds were spent…

Resistant Musings

One of the conventional slogans that partially-informed readers parrot about postmodern thought and post-structuralism holds that it means ‘anything goes’, that it erases the distinction between right and wrong. But as a matter of demonstrable fact, specifically modern hermeneutics hasn’t advanced ‘correctness’ or general consensus on matters of interpretation over the past 250 years or…

Back, To the Future…

Margaret and I had a relaxing midweek visit to Wallingford, where we stayed at the Town Arms (whose very agreeable landlords practically became extended family). We unwound, we ate well, we tramped from church to church (on which more later), and relished the last few days of summer before we put our heads down and…

‘Who Can But Feel Shame…?’

The news has recently called our attention to special events at cathedrals, a session of ‘crazy golf’ in Rochester, and a Helter Skelter in Norwich. These extraordinary installations have been planned to get people into cathedrals, on the premise that someone who has never set foot in a cathedral before (or never in that particular…

Sunday Stromateis

• Since I’m blogging again, more or less, it seems as though I should rely more on Flickr as my medium for online images, so I spent some time uploading to and titling and tagging photos in my Flickr feed. I’ll devote mindless moments to retrospective Flickring, too, so the Facebook years should be covered…

Lyotard, Drifting From Power

Just re-reading Lyotard’s Driftworks for my hermeneutics monograph project, and admiring all the more some of his observations. In ‘Adrift’, the preface to the collection, he notes (with regard to criticism, but it applies much more generally) the phenomenon of wayfinding when you’re out of place: ‘…when you enter a foreign city and follow the…

You Can’t Get There From Here

No, of course you can get from Oxford to Cambridge (and back) — but it’s annoyingly complicated, involving a choice among (a) train in to London, then out to Cambridge; (b) coach from Oxford to Cambridge, a long ride stopping numerous times and navigating every roundabout possible along the route; or (c) Margaret just learned…

Called On Account Of…

I just started out on my mile despite the pit-a-pat of the beginning of showers — I thought I could get it in before the heavier rain — but within about twenty strides I turned back. The tendon/ligament inside my thigh was prominently uncomfortable, and I decline to risk aggravating it (especially in slippery weather).

Just A Reminder

Anyone who’s thinking that Trump will be a white knight for a No-Deal Britain, offering a trade haven to make up for the loss of EU trade arrangements, should take a quick look at his modus operandi in past deal-making. He typically zeroes in on a perceived weakness, and exploits it to gain favourable terms…

Peak Values

I’ve been distracted for a day or so by the discovery of the Digital Diamond Baseball game, available through Steam. Among the many virtues of this baseball sim lies in its openness to user-prepared content (if you don’t see this as prime AKMA-bait, you don’t know me that well). The game itself offers many recreated…

Roving Preacher

Today I didn’t run my mile, for several reasons. Yesterday, running to a cab, I felt as though I might have tweaked something in my midsection (and I’m disinclined to take chances with injury). Further, I was polishing my homily for the patronal feast at St Laurence, South Hinksey (attached below). And of course, since…