I suppose I should confess at the outset that my interest in Queen Mary I’s embalming didn’t spring from some lofty academic impulse, but from years spent in the trade myself — years of sewing mouths shut, persuading stubborn limbs into positions they hadn’t attempted since the Thatcher era, and discovering that even the most … Continue reading The Queen in Two Pieces: Mary I, Embalming, and the Illusion of Dignity
Tag: Christianity
The Cry from the Cross
The question drifted across my day like an unexpected visitor — not hostile, not foolish, just curious: ‘If Jesus is God, then who was He talking to on the cross?’ It’s not the first time I’ve been asked it. In fact, it seems to surface every few months, usually in the same tone: part intrigue, … Continue reading The Cry from the Cross
The Christmas Stamp Scandal
Image: © Royal Mail. Used for commentary/critique. —or— How the Holy Family Became Too Brown for Britain There’s nothing more British than a Christmas stamp scandal. Every year, the nation that once ruled half the world now works itself into a moral froth over an adhesive square worth a pound twenty-five. It’s as though we … Continue reading The Christmas Stamp Scandal
Christmastown in the Third Heaven: A Pilgrim’s Progress Through Pastel Nonsense
Christmas seems to fly around quicker as I get older, and I’ve had this little belter in draft for a while now. And there are moments in the modern Church when I feel that the early Reformers may have burned the wrong books. Luther fretted over indulgences; Calvin worried about predestination; Cranmer toyed with liturgies. … Continue reading Christmastown in the Third Heaven: A Pilgrim’s Progress Through Pastel Nonsense
The Scarlet Letter – Sin, Society, and the Theatre of Virtue
The Scarlet Letter is a work so suffused with moral intensity that even the commas seem to blush. Hawthorne’s Puritan New England is a place where daylight feels like cross-examination, and every whisper sounds like scripture. Sin, here, isn't merely an act — it’s a neighbourhood watch. The story begins, quite literally, with a symbol … Continue reading The Scarlet Letter – Sin, Society, and the Theatre of Virtue
Wording 