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March 25, 2020

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‘How can this be?’ (Luke 1.34) WFH: DAY 7 (Feast of the Annunciation). 8.15 am: A communion. 9.00 am: Student admin. I read over and updated my Post-its. This a time for not only forging forth with new ambitions but also catching up with those irksome tasks that have been on the back burner for too long. The minor things…
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March 24, 2020

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WFH: DAY 6. 8.15 am: A communion. Now firmly ensconced at home, a sense of the breath, length, and depth of my life and its operations in the weeks ahead was more clearly defined. 9.15 am: I set up my stall in preparation for periods during the day when I’d attempt to hold one-to-one tutorials with my MA contingent: This…
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March 23, 2020

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And a time to refrain from embracing (Ecclesiastes 3.5) Sunday, March 22 (Mothering Sunday). My mother, Blackpool, 1954: The broadcast from Lambeth Palace was a little self-conscious and starchy. The camera hadn’t enough to see; the participants needed lapel microphones. I found worship difficult. TV is a medium of spectacle rather than of participation, in my experience. The more the…
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March 21, 2020

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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…
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March 20, 2020

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“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…
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March 19, 2020

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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…
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March 18, 2020

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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…
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March 17, 2020

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‘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…
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March 16, 2020

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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 online. Today, I’ll be working on contributions to conferences that’ll probably be postponed. In the background, my mind…
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March 15, 2020

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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 travelled, I sensed a strange and unsettling spirit in the air. An invisible miasma pervaded the land. Anxiety, foreboding, and suspicion…
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