My father had an “odd couple” of favourites. One was John Wayne, the other Mario Lanza. He would always insist on saying Mario Lanzo, with an “o”, especially when my mother would point out it was Mario Lanza, with an “a”!   Towards the end of his life,...

  The mood in our aeroplane was subdued as we began the descent to cold and cloudy Glasgow Airport on our return from sunny Gran Canaria. Once we had touched down, the recorded message was played with the usual strained cheeriness, telling us not to put on our mobile phones,...

  We all like people who are prepared to get their hands dirty and not just sit in their armchair and talk about what everyone else should be doing. You could describe the coming of God in our human nature, body and soul, as God getting his hands dirty with...

  To contemplate the Crib on the feast of the Epiphany is to contemplate the joining of opposites. The star points us to the skies, both to the universe and to heaven itself; the stable points us to the earth. The shepherds are the poor, the magi the rich; the...

  On listening to today’s Gospel and the comings and goings of the Holy Family from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from Israel to Egypt and back again, it’s almost as if you can hear the strains of “the Grand Old Duke of York” in the background!   Poor Joseph! He is...

  There are three little words without which life hardly seems worth living. If no-one says them to you, and if you don’t say them to someone else, it would be as if your life were cursed, no better than a living death. Those words are: I, love, you.  ...

  As my dad drew near to the end of his life, I remember him saying to me on one occasion when I was home visiting him “it’s good to know there is someone with me.” It was uncharacteristic of him to express such things and, even on that occasion,...

  Remember Fagan? The old thief in Oliver Twist who trained boys to pickpocket! I remember a scene from the 1960’s film showing a pile of “loot” on a table in the hovel where he lived with the boys. Fagan and the boys were very happy, celebrating in dance and...

  In February and March of 1972, the UK experienced power cuts up to as much as nine hours per day. I remember it well. My father had just retired as a docker from Ardrossan harbour and had received his “golden handshake.” My mother talked him into spending a good...

  I’ve taken of an evening to watching old episodes of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett as the man himself (there are 41 free episodes on YouTube!). Holmes is already a quirky character, but Jeremey Brett’s own quirkiness ups the ante quite considerably. He is annoyingly toffee-nosed but is all...