Category: Uncategorized

A weekend of listening to the top 100 pieces by Beethoven, as voted for by listeners to a radio network, was a wonderful opportunity to revisit old favourites and hear music previously unknown. Before the Moonlight Sonata was played, a commentator observed that in it the right hand plays the melody, while left hand operates as a kind of drone. […]

In difficult times…www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/giant-kookaburra-built-during-lockdown/12286434

Some of Robinson’s attitudes give me pause. She segues from the slave-owning South to a broad and implicitly anti-English attitude, one fully expressed in what says of Churchill: ‘Did his famous stand against Hitler really amount to no more than waiting for the colonies and the United States to step in?’ This reminds me of the practice of Barak Obama […]

I met the late Geoffrey  Bolton, a distinguished scholar of Australian history, when I arrived at the University of Western Australia for what turned out to be a short spell as a research student. It quickly became apparent that he was the star of the History Department: he had read more books, spoke more thoughtfully and walked more quickly than anyone […]

For a variety of reasons this blog fell asleep some time ago, but the hour of its awakening is at hand. I hope that anyone who has tried but been unable to contact me will accept my apologies; from now the site will be monitored.

This aspect of the thought of St Gregory Palamas presented by Anestis Keselopoulos deals with a recherche topic, best presented without commentary: ‘…prayer is a state of communion with God that offers man the possibility to gain control over his unruly desires and to be cleansed of the passions…the theosis of man and his union with God are not the […]

‘Christian ethics are not a formal exposition of objective moral rules and principles that govern man’s actions and behaviour. Rather, they are the manifestation of ascetic labour, the observance of the commandments and the fulfillment of the virtues of Christ…Asceticism, properly understood, strives towards the development and transfiguration of the entire man.’ ‘It must be understood that ascetic endeavour is […]

When he was told that painful dental work costing several thousand dollars was necessary to prevent his having the unmistakably clunky smile of an old person with dentures,  Daniel Smith, a man in his early seventies, rebelled, and decided to forgo attempts to be forever young.  He took himself off to Greece for several months in search of a proper way to […]

The greatness of intellectual people is not visible to kings, rich men, captains, who are all great in a carnal sense… Archimedes in obscurity would still be revered. He fought no battles visible to the eyes, but enriched every mind with his discoveries. How splendidly he shone in the minds of men! Jesus without wealth or any outward show  of […]

A joyous celebration of the Nativity to all readers of this blog, on whatever date you celebrate it. From on high did you descend, O merciful Lord, For us did you endure three days in the tomb That we may be released from passions in this world You who are our resurrection and our life. Glory unto thee O Lord! […]