For the past two months, forget football, forget cricket, for my sporting interest has been primarily been to do with following the 2023 (men’s) Rugby (Union) World Cup, played in France. Last night I watched (on ITV, whose coverage throughout the tournament has been excellent) the final between the two foremost rugby nations – South Africa and New Zealand. And now we know – South Africa are once again the world champions but, in our looking back, let’s start from the beginning …

One of my daily “watchman” activities is to check out a number of Telegram channels. One is that of Laura Aboli (click here for her Telegram channel). Something she wrote, touched me to the core …

When I was growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s and began to follow the beautiful game of football at a professional club and international level, I had two stand out heroes from an English perspective – Jimmy Greaves, who died two years ago, and Bobby Charlton, who died earlier in the week.

According to my first Google hit: a hot potato is “a controversial issue or situation which is awkward to deal with”. Israel and Calvinism definitely fits the bill. So why talk about two seemingly unrelated subjects with the likelihood no-one will agree with me entirely and some will strongly disagree and could be offended?

Every now and then I see on my Facebook page a meme relating to or a link to a clip from the film, “Life of Brian”. Usually, I find such to be pertinent or funny, and so much so that I am going to blog about this iconic film in order to get it all off my chest.

Israel at war and what is happening in Israel today

This is the latest draft installment in my “Priests of the Bible” series, in which I reflect on the biblical feasts.

Some folk who like to check out my blogs may have picked up that besides posting mostly on more serious stuff going on in the world, I fancy myself as a restaurant, and the like, critic and have from time to time posted on one or other eating establishment, particularly cafes serving up my favourite meal – a full English breakfast.

The following is the draft of the latest installment of my forthcoming book “Priests of the Bible”, written on this most holy of days in the Jewish calendar – The Day of Atonement. Be aware this is but one piece in the big jigsaw. For the whole, check out various chapters posted on my blog and my book when it is out.

If you know the answer then great. If not then let me begin by quoting Wikipedia in order to explain who these two men are (likely many will have heard of Russell Brand and but not so many will have heard of Quinton de Kock).