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With our Black Friday deals in the bag and Advent calendars ready to be opened we’re all set for the final push to Christmas. But while the days may be getting shorter that can’t be said for our to-do lists. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be writing cards, buying and wrapping gifts and stocking our cupboards with festive food and drink. We run the risk of being so busy with our preparations that w...

By the spring of 1621 only half of the Pilgrims who had arrived aboard the Mayflower were still alive, and 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 surprise he not only spoke English but was willing to show them the tricks of growing corn in the sandy soil, and which poisonous...

When King Charles was born on 14 th  November 1948 post-war food rationing was still in place. So, very fitting that he should mark his 75 th  birthday with the launch of a new project aimed at alleviating hunger in the 21 st century. The issue now is not a lack of food overall but it being in the wrong place at the wrong time. While millions go hungry tonnes of surplus food is simply th...

After being stranded at the bottom of a cliff for two years Britain’s ‘loneliest sheep’ Fiona has been rescued from Cromarty Firth in the Scottish Highlands and is now settling into her ‘forever home’ on a farm near Dumfries. Her prolonged isolation lay in the fact that the cliffs rose 250m and there seemed no safe way to reach her. She also hadn’t helped herself by piling on the pounds. weighing...

It’s the naturalist’s rule of thumb when observing nature not to interfere. Ecosystems are finely balanced, and nature should be allowed to take its course. But there are exceptions especially when a species is at risk. This week Planet Earth returned to our screens and featured the plight of the green turtle on Raine Island off the Australian coast. We watched as one female who had become trapped...

As once again conflict erupts in the Middle East, I’m reminded of a poem written by Steve Turner: History repeats itself. Has to. No one listens. While it may be true that wars are sometimes fought to defeat evil and defend freedom, the reality is that thousands will pay the highest price. Families are torn apart and traumatised, communities and livelihoods destroyed, and for those who survive the...

As a child I was fascinated by the Insect-O-Cutor fly killer that hung at the back of the little café, where we would often go for an ice cream. On a hot day a constant stream of flies would be attracted to the warm purple glow and realise too late that when they landed they would die. The Insect-O-Cutor and the fly were incompatible. The ancient Jews discovered much the same thing as they respond...

As snooker player Ding Junhui has discovered, wearing the wrong clothes can be costly. He turned up for his opening match at the England Open Snooker tournament in brown trousers. But the dress code explicitly states that players must be dressed in black. Realising his mistake Ding sent a friend to buy the correct colour trousers from a nearby shop. But the delay meant he started the game late and...

On 4 th  January the British Prime Minister made five bold promises. He pledged to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut NHS waiting lists and stop small boats crossing the channel. He said, ‘I fully expect you to hold my government and I to account on delivering those goals.’ As the months have rolled by and targets have been missed, he may be wishing he hadn’t been quite so bo...

Being acquitted of a crime would normally be a cause for celebration. But not so for one inmate who was acquitted of all the charges laid against him in 2013 at the Owerri High Court in Nigeria. Instead of embracing his new freedom he looked downhearted and begged to be returned to prison. In the end it took the efforts of six prison officials, court workers and policemen to get him off the premis...

While Barbie and Oppenheimer were this summer’s blockbusters, Sound of Freedom has been the unexpected box-office hit of 2023. It tells the fictionalised story of Tim Ballard, a US agent for Homeland Security tasked with taking down those involved in child pornography. But haunted by the children who are left undiscovered he sets out to rescue a child from Colombian sex-traffickers. By turns heart...

Following a problem with air traffic control on Bank Holiday Monday thousands of travellers are now stranded far from home. The issue has been no respecter of persons with businessmen and holidaymakers affected the same and many being told they could be stuck for days. Airlines are not obliged to help but some are suggesting alternative routes. It now turns out that just a single rogue flight plan...

To the amazement of its owners a single house remains intact in what was once the thriving town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. As wildfires swept down the mountains and burned to the ground every other house, for some reason this one survived. The fact that it did so may be down to recent renovations – the asphalt roof was replaced with heavy-gauge metal and overgrown foliage was cut b...

For one week each year I tolerate the deprivations that come with camping so that we can attend a Christian festival. Over the years we’ve added numerous bits of kit to make the experience as enjoyable as it can be, and one of the first was a kettle. Its most useful feature was a loud whistle to let me know that the water was boiling. Without the whistle the kettle is potentially very dangerous as...

But for an accident of history the Orkney Islands might still be part of Norway and ruled by men with names such as Erik Bloodaxe and Thorfinn the Skull-splitter. Only a failure by King Christian I to pay his wedding dowry in the fifteenth century led to the Scots taking the islands for themselves. Fast forward 600 years and it seems that the Orkney islanders are wishing they hadn’t been quite so...

It would seem that Vladimir Putin is unfamiliar with the saying that harbouring unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die. He’s clearly not the forgiving type and when he holds a grudge you can be sure it won’t be him drinking the poison! When asked what behaviour he could never forgive he replied, ‘treachery’. So, while Yevgeny Prigozhin has been pardoned for now,...

As I write the eyes of the world are focussed on the desperate search to find a tiny submarine lost in the North Atlantic. Last seen on Sunday the vessel and its five occupants were diving to see the wreck of the Titanic, but contact was lost, and nothing has been heard since. The challenge of finding the vessel is immense and if stranded on the ocean floor there are few options for a successful r...

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant tells the story of an American soldier, John Kinley, and his Afghan interpreter, Ahmed. The sole survivors of an ambush deep inside Taliban territory they must run for their lives, and when Kinley is wounded Ahmed faces a gruelling and perilous journey to get him to safety. But with Kinley now safe and airlifted home, the Taliban put a price on Ahmed’s life, and he goes...

Why are we always so surprised when those we idolise disappoint us? Billy Graham lived a virtuous life but made no pretence that he was perfect. He would sometimes observe that there was not a single sin he was not capable of committing within 30 minutes of leaving a stadium. He was making the point that all of us have the capacity for great evil as well as good. This is why we should never put an...

Pitching to the Dragons Den in 2006, the inventor of the Trunki ride-on suitcase for children was told his idea was worthless. It was one of their more famous misses. Five million suitcases later he sold the business for £12m. His success was built on our desire for an easy journey. Long gone are the days of hauling heavy suitcases by the handle with frequent stops to rest our weary arms. Now we’r...

‘Adoption is the greatest expression of love I can think of’. So said Brent, a Canadian who was giving a lift to Zainab and Mobeen in the last latest series of Race Across the World. The couple had shared with him their sadness at not having been able to conceive a child after six years of trying. This prompted Brent to share his own story of having been adopted. He said that as a child he hadn’t...

Charles Darwin was troubled by the life cycle of the parasitic wasp. As the name implies the wasp lays its eggs inside a caterpillar which it then consumes and kills to ensure its own survival. Darwin wondered how a beneficent God could create something so cruel. Surely natural selection divorced from the idea of a Creator made more sense. His wife Emma was concerned about where this might all lea...

In the BBC series Sort Your Life Out families, whose homes have become so filled with possessions and clutter, that they feel overwhelmed, are helped to sort things out. Everything is removed and laid out in a huge warehouse where they are guided through the process of deciding what to keep and what to give up. It’s astonishing to see quite how much one family can accumulate, from thousands of toy...

If the Bible is correct in its assertion that ‘In the beginning God’, then perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised when we find his fingerprints in creation. In recent years medical scientists have discovered that when a male sperm fertilizes a female egg light is produced. The action of the sperm piercing the egg releases millions of zinc molecules which quite literally put on a magnificent firework di...

In 1989 I led a team of students to visit churches in Poland. The Iron Curtain had not yet fallen, none of us spoke either German or Polish, and we had no satnav or mobile phones. Despite these challenges we somehow made it to our hosts in Krakow.  On a rest day they took us to the town of Oświęcim. The name meant nothing, and it was only as we drew near that we realised we were going to...