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Howls of protest this week as Trump intervened over the red card awarded to Falorin Balogan the USA’s top goal scorer. Sent off in the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina everyone assumed that that was that. The rules are clear – get a red card and you miss the next game, and FIFA’s rules don’t allow teams to appeal. But then came the phone call from Trump and mysteriously the one match suspension was...

As a licence fee funded service the BBC is not allowed to advertise. This means that whenever a brand name is referenced, for example Heinz Tomato Ketchup, the presenter must always add ‘other ketchups are available’. It’s become so familiar and so regular that adding this disclaimer has entered common usage. Many of us referencing a particular brand will add the disclaimer without thinking. It’s...

If you are cooling off in the latest heatwave with an ice-cold drink, you might want to raise a glass to Frederick Tudor. Tudor lived in New England in the early 19 th  century and one day hit upon the idea of selling ice to people in countries where it was hot. Everyone thought he was mad. Firstly, there was no demand and secondly, all the ice was sure to melt before it reached its destinati...

Steven Spielberg’s famous film  Saving Private Ryan  begins with a graphic portrayal of the D-Day landings on Omaha beach. Thousands lose their lives during the assault. But then comes news that Private Ryan’s three brothers have all been killed in quick succession and to spare his mother further grief the order is given to find him and bring him home.  Captain Miller is tasked...

The list of goods purchased by Peter Murrell using embezzled SNP funds reads like the items on the Generation Game conveyer belt: a Nintendo Switch, a selection of video games, a necklace, a Miele coffee machine, a luxury Bremont watch, a selection of DVDs, a GoPro camera, a onesie. The list goes on and on. Sadly, Murrell wasn’t a finalist on a game show but abusing his position as treasurer to st...

In a world in which political leaders are prone to exalt themselves and cling on to power as if they were indispensable, we might be wise to take a lesson from the Romans. A victorious general returning from war would be given quite the homecoming. Their triumphal procession through the city would last all day or sometimes even two. Carried in a horse-drawn chariot the general would be preceded by...

On 10 th  April 1912 Father Robert Browne boarded the RMS Titanic for her maiden voyage. He had been gifted a ticket by his uncle to sail from Southampton to Queenstown* in Ireland, her last stop before the transatlantic crossing. But while at sea he made friends with a wealthy American couple who so enjoyed his company they offered to pay for him to travel all the way to New York. He needed...

Clearing up other people’s waste is extremely costly. Across Britain today there are hundreds of sites containing tonnes of waste, and eleven have now been labelled ‘supersites’ with more than 20,000 tonnes each. The cost of the clear up is unknown but will run into millions of pounds with one site alone costing more than £9m. The problem is some people don’t want to have to pay to get rid of thei...

The TV series Sort Your Life Out features families overwhelmed by the number of possessions and the amount of clutter that is filling their homes. They simply don’t know where to begin. The first step involves removing everything and laying it all out in a huge warehouse. Next, they are guided through the process of deciding what to keep and what to give up. It’s astonishing to see quite how much...

In 1943 Anna Jarvis campaigned to have Mother’s Day cancelled in America. This might not have been anything to note had she not been the person who had done so much to promote it in the first place. On 10 th May 1908 she held a memorial ceremony to celebrate motherhood in her church at Grafton, West Virginia, and by 1914 it had become established as a national holiday.  But over the years it...

On 10 th  March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell uttered the immortal words, ‘Mr Watson – come here – I want to see you’. It was the first telephone call ever made. This was cutting edge technology that would change the world forever. It was the Victorian age when human progress seemed unstoppable, and people were dreaming dreams about what the future might look like. Hard on the heels of the telep...

In a recent interview the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, declared, ‘one of the core principles in our system is that everybody is equal under the law and nobody is above the law’. This means that regardless of your status in society the law applies to you and no one is at liberty to disregard it. The problem, of course, is that some people do see them themselves as being above the law. They...

British figure skaters Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson came agonisingly close to winning the first Olympic Gold medal since Torvill and Dean in 1994. Years of sacrifice, dedication and endless hours on the ice have seen them rise up the rankings, winning silvers and bronze in recent European championships.  They started their routine flawlessly with a complex lift, but in the second element Fear...

William Golding was a Royal Navy Lieutenant who took part in the D-Day landings. His experience of that conflict and the Cold War that followed, inspired him to write his first novel Lord of the Flies. In the book a party of school children are stranded on a desert island. Initially rejoicing that no adults have survived they attempt to build their own society with just three rules – to have fun,...

Forty days on and Christmas is a distant memory. The bright lights that lit up our homes are back in the box, and we’ve long since eaten the last of the turkey curry leftovers. Now we’re just holding on through the storms of winter for the first signs of spring. But hold on a minute, what’s this? In the midst of the winter gloom followers of Jesus are not quite done with Christmas. The 2 nd  ...

In a few weeks’ time Artemis II will blast off taking people back to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. While they won’t land on this occasion, they will be paving the way for others in years to come.  It was John F Kennedy who announced to Congress on 25 th  May 1961 that America would have men on the moon before the end of that decade. The following year he visited NASA for...

In James Cameron’s film Titanic, Bruce Ismay, the Managing Director of the White Star Line declares, ‘This ship can’t sink!’ With a line that sends shivers down the spine the ship’s architect replies, ‘She’s made of iron Sir, I assure you she can’.  I’m reminded of this episode as yet another luminary of the Christian world turns out not be as perfect as we had hoped. For decades Philip Yancy...

I wonder what you long for in life and how you cope with disappointments when dreams don’t come true? This week Timothy Chalamet finally won a Golden Globe on his fifth nomination. How did he deal with the disappointment of walking away empty-handed so many times? Well, his father taught him always to be grateful for what he had rather than what he didn’t. It was great advice. A life focussed on w...

I moved home on 2 nd  January. This seemed like a good idea back in September. But as the weeks rolled by and the busyness of preparing for Christmas picked up, I became less sure. You see the issue was not just that I was moving but that I was downsizing from a three-bedroomed house with a large loft to a two-bed flat with limited storage space. I simply couldn’t take everything with me and...

In these days of polarisation and division we would do well to remember the origins of the American festival of Thanksgiving. It was the spring of 1621 and only half of the Pilgrims who had arrived aboard the Mayflower were still alive. Their chances of survival seemed slim, but providence was on their side. Seemingly by chance they happened upon an Abenaki Indian by the name of Squanto. To their...

Once again evolutionary scientists are scratching their heads trying to find the reason behind one of our most common behaviours – kissing. We’ve been doing it for a very long time, and not just humans but animals as well including wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears and even albatrosses. To be fair the scientist’s definition of a kiss is the rather unromantic ‘non-aggressive, directed oral-oral con...

Near the main entrance of Westminster Abbey lies The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Brought from the battlefield of the Western Front and buried ‘amongst the kings’ this unknown soldier represents the countless thousands who gave their lives in the First World War. His body was laid to rest on 11 th  November 1920 in the presence of the Royal Family, and ministers of state. Also in attendance w...

As he nears the end of his life Anthony Hopkins has made this candid assessment about the prospect of dying: ‘We are all going to die eventually, aren’t we? And now my thing is, screw it. Who cares. Nobody really cares. We all think we do. It’s all a dream within a dream. So, I am happy with that. Now I am not scared of it. I have no fear. I am too old to be frightened. Because one day, I will lea...

In a world of spin doctors, fake news and social media driven conspiracy theories it’s getting harder to know what is true and what isn’t. The danger is that we doubt everything and trust no one and, as we are seeing across the free world, that leads to increasing fragmentation and division. Having a truth that we can trust and on which we can build secure lives and communities is really important...

After two long years the hostages taken by Hamas have finally been returned. For the families left behind it has been two years of longing, waiting and hoping. No wonder there has been such an outpouring of joy and celebration as those who have survived have been reunited with their loved ones. The emotions have been raw and visceral and shared around the world. Perhaps the strength of these famil...