Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6.11) That’s to say, bread enough for today. (For I’ll pray again for the same tomorrow.) That’s to say, not someone else’s bread. (Hording at another’s expense is manifest selfishness, born of insufficient love for our neighbour and trust in God.) WFH: DAY 4. 8.20 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Yesterday evening…

“Covid-19 is Gods’ judgement upon the misuse of apostrophe’s“ WFH: DAY 3. I’m surprised that there aren’t more loveless nut-ball religionists, with an axe to grind against humanity, posting fake theologies. This virus isn’t a judgement. The ‘faithful’ will contract this disease just as surely as those of no faith. It doesn’t discriminate. And neither should we when it comes…

So important to keep diaries of these dark days not only to reduce our anxieties and settle our nerves but also for the benefit of future historians. Without diarists we wouldn’t know much about the personal side of our history (Pedr ap Llwyd, Twitter, March 18, 2020) WFH: DAY 2. (In the background: Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto Op.14 (1939).) 8.30…

Love thy neighbour as thyself (Matthew 22.39) WFH: DAY 1. 8.00 am: A communion. 8.30 pm: Working from Home (WFM) is what academic staff do for most of the Summer. It’s no big deal for us. But for others, the loss of one’s colleagues’ society – the conversations around coffee machine, and over lunch and a drink at the end…

‘Best in bad times, John’ 8.00 am: My professional life is now lived hour-by-hour. I’m making it up as I go along, just like everyone else. As one journalist remarked on Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘There’s no end-game’. As in times of war, it’ll only be over when the energy is defeated. How we live our lives in the next…

8.00 am: I caught-up on overnight emails. Ordinarily, this would be ordinary week. But as it presently stands, I’m making plans for tutorials and classes that may not be delivered face-to-face. We await the university’s decision. Many institutions are now operating exclusively on-line. Today, I’ll be working on contributions to conferences that’ll probably be postponed. In the background, my mind…

Friday 13 – Sunday 15 March. 7.30 am: London bound: My sons had invited me to stay for the weekend in order to visit Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club. It was a late and much anticipated Christmas present. As I traveled, I sensed a strange and unsettling spirit in the air. An invisible miasma pervaded the land. Anxiety, foreboding, and suspicion…

Scanned for viruses (Windows 10) 8.30 am: Against the razor-edge of the wind, onto the road, and up towards the School. 8.45 am: Hibiscus. It’s a good choice on days when I rarely have the opportunity to drink to the bottom of the cup in one sitting: delicious hot, lukewarm, or cold. 9.00 am: Onto the studio floor. 9.30 pm:…

Tuesday, March 10. I needed to double-up on MA teaching, what with having been away in Manchester last Tuesday. The overnight winds had created small mountains of shale on the Promenade. The tide was in and raged mildly against the sea wall. The pathway was punctuated with pools, mirroring the grey sky as it moved across the town: However, Raine’s…

I create relatively short compositions because they don’t need to be any longer.   Sunday, March 8. 11.15 am: The Church in Wales advice was: no wine at Communion and no physical contact during the ‘Peace’. The services’ proceedings sped along as a consequence. 1.30 pm: Having ‘hugged’ my younger son and sent him off on his train home, I…