Is there anything more British than politely dying of a mysterious illness while sweating profusely and refusing to make a fuss about it. Enter: The Sweating Sickness of 1485 - or as I like to call it, the Tudor’s very own bout of medieval man-flu, except it killed you quicker than a court summons from … Continue reading The Tudors Break a Sweat: My Encounter With the Most Pointless Plague in History
Tag: death
Bearing the Broken: Van Gogh’s Good Samaritan and the Art of Endurance
Art imitates life, or so I’m told, but in The Good Samaritan by Vincent van Gogh, life doesn’t just inspire the art - it bleeds into it. You can feel the strain in every brushstroke. This isn’t a tranquil tale of neighbourly virtue. This is what compassion looks like after the cameras stop rolling. After … Continue reading Bearing the Broken: Van Gogh’s Good Samaritan and the Art of Endurance
Mastro Titta: Pope’s Little Helper with a Big Sword
Giovanni Battista Bugatti - what a name, eh? It sounds like the kind of bloke you’d expect to sell you a fine bottle of chianti or offer unsolicited advice about your olive oil. But no - our man Bugatti wasn’t swirling wine or chasing goats in the hills. He was the official executioner for the … Continue reading Mastro Titta: Pope’s Little Helper with a Big Sword
In Absentia: A Theology of Objects
I've touched on a similar theme in an earlier post, but as per my obsession with objects, I thought there's be no harm indulging again. There’s a sentence in Julian Barnes’ Metroland that hits with the sort of quiet, subcutaneous sting I’ve come to associate with him: Objects contain absent people. On the face of it, it's a throwaway … Continue reading In Absentia: A Theology of Objects
Suffering, Song, and the Sorrows of the Mother of God
The Stabat Mater is not a hymn so much as it’s a wound set to music - a gash in the human heart where grief spills out in metre and Latin vowels. It’s Mary beneath the cross, yes, but it’s also every parent who has ever outlived their child; every person who has stood by … Continue reading Suffering, Song, and the Sorrows of the Mother of God
Wording 