Happy 2017

Because at last 2016 has almost gone and I can't wait to see the back of it. I can't recall a year when so many beloved people left us. I don't want to list them I don't think its fair or necessary they each earned their right to a dignified solitary departure and knowing me I'd be sure to miss out a loved musician.

2016 has hours to go and I think its better to hope for the future than stare longingly at the past. I will have a glass of wine or two and welcome the New Year as I kick the last one out the door.

Blessings if you pass this way may your New Year be all you wish for.

George Michael 25/06/1963 - 25/12/2016

George Michael has gone. He was fifty three which is no age at all. He was so talented but more importantly and as many of us are only now learning he was also a very kind, generous man.

Very much of his time he embodied the need and demand for free expression and if I didn't agree with all his beliefs I defend his right to hold and voice them.

He was too young to die without questioning how but maybe that's a question we strangers to him shouldn't ask. If he was in poor health and wanted the world to know he would have told us himself.

RIP George Michael you made a difference in so many ways.

2016 has been a dreadful year we have lost David Bowie, Prince and now George Michael. Heaven has some rare talent now.

Merry Christmas to Everyone

I must confess I'm not in the mood for celebrating this year but the lasting beauty of Christmas is that we, none of us need to be in the right mood Christmas simply is and as over priced and devalued as it has become it is still very special to all Christians and a great many non Christians.

We in the west owe so much of our culture and our civilisation to Christianity that its impossible to imagine how we would have evolved without it, and so, in spite of my mood and in spite of all the attacks upon Christianity I do wish everyone a very merry Christmas.

May your stocking be filled with everything you need.