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Yesterday I was reading William Ernest Henley’s famous poem ‘Invictus’. The final verse sent a chill through my bones: ‘It matters not how strait the gate / How charged with punishments the scroll / I am the master of my fate / I am the captain of my soul.’ I thought to myself, “William Henley,…

Area 51 is a military base in the Nevada Desert which, according to some, holds many intriguing secrets from far-away worlds. Conspiracy-theorists have always held that the 1969 moon landing was filmed in one of the hangers, while others swear that alien corpses lie encased in military-morgues. Residents who live in the vicinity are preparing…

Colin Duriez, in his book on the Oxford Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien and Their Circle), describes the conversion of C S Lewis in terms of a card game. For Lewis, the avowed atheist, life was like a game of Solitaire. It was just him and the cards. Nothing else. No One else. All materialistic. Nothing supernatural….

I didn’t get to see the recent Tolkien film, but thought I’d quickly read his famous book again to mark the occasion. What a great story! To destroy the ruling ring before the Lord of the Rings can get it back on his finger and conquer Middle-Earth. At present the small hobbit Frodo has it…

I remember during one of the Queen’s visits to Australia, that I actually saw her royal person drive by in her special royal car, and that she waved….. at me! Well, I think it was me that she waved to, but I can’t say exactly for sure. (That’s actually the extent of my brush with…

There are some red faces at the moment at the Australian Mint, for not spell-checking the new $50 note before going to print. I’m not sure who has taken personal responsibilty. Ooops. There it is. The offending word. Responsibility sans an ‘i’ three places from the end. And yet, according to the Mint, the note…

I picked up an acorn the other day, and dreamed a dream. I dreamed of the day when that acorn would become a huge oak, under which my family would gather and play. I can see the picture in my mind’s eye: tartan rug rolled out over the autumn leaves, grandchildren swinging from the strongest…

The reason I believe in creation, according to a book I’m reading on left-handedness, is because I’m strongly right-handed. Which means, for all people who are “strongly handed”, left or right, their corpus callosum (the internet cable that joins the left and right hemispheres of the brain and enables the transfer of information) is smaller…

‘Digestives’! Who ever gave that name to a chocolate biscuit? A doctor? A nutritionist? A gastroenterologist? Really! It’s like naming a box of Turkish Delight, ‘Duodenal Delicacies’, or a bag of Cherry Ripes, ‘Colonic Charms’. I’m a newcomer to these chocolate pleasures, and quite fond of them, but I wonder how many people pass them…

Earlier this year I watched a master puppeteer in action. His ‘puppets’ were shadows, and he moved his hands in front of the light with incredible dexterity to make wolves and rabbits and even an elephant. But my favourite shadow was two monkeys, sitting on their haunches, and laughing and making up mischief. What a…