Category: Religion

Let Us Pray

The Royal Hospital Chelsea is an appropriate place to worship on Easter Sunday. The fresco in the apse is Sebastiano Ricci’s The Resurrection.

The Aetherius Temple

In January I mentioned the whirling dervishes of Colet House and promised news of another eccentric local attraction.

Colet House

John Colet was Dean of St Paul’s and, in 1509, founded St Paul’s School. Colet House was built on what is now the Talgarth Road in the 1880s. It is adjacent to LAMDA and has been used by the LAMDA students while their new rehearsal rooms were being built.

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Temple Time

Friends invited me today to the Hindu temple in Neasden, as they thought it would interest me and it did. The building, opened in 1995, has intricate carving in stone and wood and an elaborate archway, above.

All about Aloysius

There are some unfathomable mysteries in life. One is why John Betjeman called his teddy bear Archibald Ormsby-Gore. He took Archie with him to Oxford and Archie appears in Brideshead Revisited as Sebastian Flyte’s teddy, Aloysius.

Bath Abbey

Most of my Christmas Day Services have been at the C of I church in Dunleer. It was Low Church, austere architecturally and with the old, simple liturgy. Even the plate was a wooden platter, the sort of thing  from which Oliver Twist might have had an exiguous helping of gruel. It was presented by… Continue reading Bath Abbey

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Incense and Truffles

Macbeth; Act I: First Witch … her husband’s to Aleppo gone … On Good Friday in 2000 I didn’t pay for a ticket on the Heathrow Express and I wasn’t a fare dodger. I went to the wrong terminal and there was no charge to take the train between terminals. I just caught the direct BA… Continue reading Incense and Truffles

St Yeghichè and St Cyprian

In a dictatorship when said dictator wants to impose his will he issues a Presidential Decree and at a stroke the dictator’s whim is law.   In the UK there are democratic elections and two chambers in parliament to debate and scrutinise legislation. That is unless something is too trivial to detain our politicians, such… Continue reading St Yeghichè and St Cyprian

Bon Dia

Valentia is one of the most westerly points in Ireland, lying off the South-West coast of Kerry, connected to the mainland by a bridge. If you want to go there be careful not to buy a ticket for Valencia – and vice versa.

St Thomas the Apostle

Yesterday I went to The Royal Hospital, Chelsea. It was a Vets’ Service. Let’s get something clear. If you are an American you will assume it was a Service for Veterans; if not you will intuit that it was attended by uniformed members of The Royal Army Veterinary Corps.  –more–> After they had filed into the Chapel, designed by… Continue reading St Thomas the Apostle