All posts in Uncategorized

I’m approaching a year of job searching, and it hurts. I’m very good at what I do — teach, research, write, lead worship and preach — but I’m old, I’m not a partisan darling, not especially good-looking, and because of my career path I’m not an obvious REF candidate (I’d dispute that, based on the…

Two miles, 11°, 50mph gusts of wind. And if someone clicked here out of curiosity about films, I favour the 1974 version directed by Lena Wertmüller, not the more recent Madonna vehicle. Today is for catching up — ideally for closing out — marking. It was fun to spend some time on Greek over the…

I had a good, long night’s sleep (even though I woke up in the middle of the night to catch the second half of the Duke-Virginia ACC championship game on the ESPN website — go Duke!), enjoyed my two-mile run in 7° air, and made a slow pace. Quick morning of prayer and then the…

I did run this morning — at -3° with no precipitation, it was extremely cold but the cold didn’t seep through my hoodie and gloves as it does when it’s raining or sleeting. Two miles, very patient pace since I was coming back after two days off. The BBC suggests that tomorrow will be much…

I’m bunking off from running, still, as the weather stolidly refuses to improve and my throat is still wobbly (it’s embarrassing talking about the death of Jesus in John’s Gospel with a voice that alternates between James Earl Jones and Mickey Mouse). Right now the BBC projects tolerable weather for Sunday, so I’ll tentatively plan…

Two days in a row with no running, cos it’s still bone-achingly cold out, with some sleet apparently, and I seem to have lost my voice (so that running in cold, wet weather seems an unlikely recipe for rapid recovery). Several tutes today, marking (etc.), and Margaret gives a lecture tonight, so we’re not yet…

There’s no snow lying on the pavements (on James Street), but rooftops, walls, leaves, parked autos, and fences are dusted. I decided last night not to run this morning, so I permitted myself an extra hour’s sleep. This definitely seems like a good thing. I look forward to some sweet rest between terms. This afternoon,…

Once again, 1°, (very) light sleet, two miles. I set an overambitious pace and didn’t meet it, but I expected as much; I did get home just three minutes later than my notional target.

Two miles, 1°, ‘light sleet’ according to the BBC Weather, and a very full timetable today. I did make my pacemark, but I had set it at what I thought was a nvery generous pace, when in fact I was sprinting to catch it at the end (and did catch it with time to spare,…

The publication of the Matt Hancock WhatsApp transcripts from the Tory leadership conversations has engendered an appropriate response of mockery, indignation, and incredulity (I myself thought that certain excerpts had to be from a parody site, they were so outrageously, gleefully hard-hearted). I’m not sure, however, that they have provoked an increase in cynicism, and…

Rowan Williams’s lovely interview with Nick Cave; Beth Felker Jones’s takedown of the infamous Gospel Coalition ‘semen as divine gift’ post (a compelling illustration that, although Beth and I hold to very different basic theologies [she evangelical Protestant, I catholic Anglican] and probably very different assessments of human sexuality [though we haven’t talked that over],…

Two degrees, a very slow pace, but two miles naetheless, in the books as it were. Morning Mass at Cowley St John, Evensong tonight at Oriel (University Sermon by our own Mark Wynn), home, then a whole solid week of work. Whee!