People sometimes say ‘Easter Saturday’ meaning the day before Easter. In fact, it is the Saturday after Easter, and this year it was the day the Pope died. The first reading in the Missal for that day is from the Acts of the Apostles (iv 13–21). It concerns the reaction of the elders and scribes
The passing of a great pope promotes thoughts about goodness, and what constitutes it. What is goodness? And, for that matter, what is good itself? Joseph Addison was quite clear: ‘Music is the greatest good that mortals know.’ But among the greatest evils of our time, I would put pop music, its idols, its drugs
Charles Thomson has achieved what I thought was impossible. He has provoked me to sympathise with the directors of Equitable Life: the gold braid, that is, on the bridge when the ship hit the iceberg. Our oldest life assurance office — set up in 1762, which made it Barings’ twin — had been holed below
Thirteen local authorities have been chosen by the government to be Cultural Pathfinders, showing how culture and sport can help to deliver government priorities across public life. The government’s social, environmental and economic agenda is to be promoted through cultural initiatives at local level. In a joint initiative with the Local Government Association (LGA), the
