How lovely to read the following quote from Sir Roy Strong, sometime director of all lovely things at the V & A: "I want to make people realise that churches change the whole time. We are so conditioned to look at churches solely as architecture. I want people to see what went on and goes…

The blog is working again, and with a new theme. The updated comments module is much better. You can post comments in your own name without being logged in.Go on – try it for size.

I’ve just had to turn comments off. More comment spam to deal with. Ugh.

The "trim the enormous beech tree" project is underway even as I write. I do wish that whoever has planted that tree had planted something a good deal more demure and petite. We have lots and lots of leaves. Next door has lots and lots of of bird dung. Hopefully this will help. Perhaps thinning…

This documentary on Channel 4 is very wearisome. Too many pantomime characters. Too much like real life.

Tomorrow is the day that Episcopal churches count the number of people at services. You have to be there to be counted. Tomorrow there is also a Big Sing at the church of St Peter and St Mildred, Linlithgow – starts 6 pm.

Two consultations exercises today. This morning I was in Edinburgh taking part in a discussion about what General Synod is for. (Polite answers on a postcard or in comments or e-mails). How to connect General Synod with local congregations? Which is the primary entity in the Christian church, the province/nation, the diocese, the charge (multiple…

I don’t usually comment about the "crisis" in the Anglican Communion o­n this blog – I’ve other outlets for that kind of debate.However, I am astonished by the events of the last couple of weeks. Up until now I’ve assumed that most people really did want the Anglican churches to stick together, however hard that…

I’ve just received a copy of Bertie – how exciting.The correct name of the book is "Scottish Episcopal Clergy 1689 – 2000" and it is the definitive work on SEC members of the clergy. The clergy biographies are interesting (my own is slightly inaccurate) but even more interesting is a brief history of each of…