David Wells

Prayers today, on this second anniversary of their captivity, for the release of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza, as well as relief for their families, all entering a third year of terrifying darkness. Prayers for an urgent end to this war and a just peace.

Today we pause to remember October 7 — a day of pain and loss. We pray for healing, for the release of hostages, and for lasting peace. May our prayers bring light to the darkness.

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

Morning.

Prayers ascend for Bishop Sarah today, as well as grateful thanks for her “yes” to the call of Church. Serving on the Crown Nomination commission was an experience of the Holy Spirit, for which I am thankful to God. www.dioceseofnorwich.org/announcement...

You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.

Gramsci, the Muppets edition

Nothing the Labour Party likes more than fighting each other. Particularly the parts whose whole existence seem to be to stop other parts ever gaining power.

[Scene is a 1960s suburban sitting room, with a grand piano in it. The religious songwriter ESTELLE WHITE is sat at the piano, with a rotary phone sat on top of the lid. She is on the phone to her music publisher, someone I've made up called JERRY] 1 ESTELLE WHITE: OK Jerry I’ve got another banger for you 2 ESTELLE WHITE: Listen to this! [She slams the receiver on the top of the piano]. 3 ESTELLE WHITE [hammering on the piano]: AUTUMN DAYS WHEN THE GRASS IS JEWELLED AND THE SILK INSIDE A CHESTNUT SHELL! JET PLANES MEETING IN THE AIR TO BE REFUELLED, ALL THESE - JERRY [voice from the phone handset]: Eh? 4 JERRY: What was that last bit, Estelle? ESTELLE WHITE: “Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled”… 5 JERRY: Is that a thing you often see in autumn? ESTELLE WHITE [Smoking from a long cigarette holder]: All the time, Jerry. Aaaaall the time.... 6 JERRY: Nothing to do with it being the only thing that rhymes with ‘jewelled’? ESTELLE WHITE: No! 7 ESTELLE WHITE: It’s one of the high-speed, high-altitude feats of military aviation one often sees in autumn time. 8 JERRY: What about leaves and squirrels and - ESTELLE WHITE: Now listen, Jerry. 9 ESTELLE WHITE: Do you want a crap hymn about conkers… 10 ESTELLE WHITE: Or do you want an all-time earworm banger that everyone who hears it will sing in their heads, every single time they see a fallen leaf, until the day they die? 11 JERRY: OK… sorry… carry on… 12 ESTELLE WHITE: FROS-TY WINDOWS ON HARR-IER JUMPJETS AND THE SMELL OF NUCLEAR SUB-MAR-INES… JERRY: How about acorns? [ends]

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled

Classic #CofE…

Regular reminder for CoE folk that the Spectator's owner is a prominent member of HTB, on the board of the Church Revitalisation Trust, and the founder of the Centre for Cultural Witness.

Latest from me: The prime minister increasingly looks like a man next to a burning house, offering to buy a new bookcase and rug
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Senior Labour figures tell Keir Starmer to stop making mistakes

I bet he wishes he’d thought of that

Gun murders last year:
US: 17,927
England & Wales: 22

Here's the data, per capita, in the chart below.

It's the guns. I wrote about the evidence, with lots of data, along with a more personal response to the Annunciation Church shooting (where I was baptized): www.forkingpaths.co/p/guns-at-an...

I'm inclined to think God reads books on systematic theology when he fancies a good laugh

"I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear"
- Martin Luther King, Jr

Cooper suggests asylum seekers could be moved into warehouses instead of hotels – UK politics live Home secretary says government aims to ‘shrink the whole asylum system’ and is looking at ‘military and industrial sites’

When centrists adopt far-right rhetoric, they don’t make themselves stronger. They make themselves look inauthentic, legitimise the far right, and shift the political debate onto terrain defined by their opponents.
www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

In a book published in the 1940s, Dorothy Day wrote:
Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself, "What else is the world interested in?" (1/3)

An open letter to Nigel Farage - Bishop Steven's Blog Bishop Steven writes an open letter in response to Nigel Farage MP's immigration policy which was launched in Oxford this week.

A courteous but very impressive rebuke to Nigel Farage from the Bishop of Oxford.

"I heard no compassion in what you said...".

"I disagree profoundly with your attempts to ... increase fear of the stranger in our communities".

Do read.
blogs.oxford.anglican.org/an-open-lett...

A Border Collie and Aussie both letting each other know they Are not a threat... 😊

#dog #dogday #bluesky

Diagram titled 'Possible causes of your problems'. On the left hand side, subtitled 'Yes': Funding removed from local councils, growing gap between rich and poor, multinational companies not paying their taxes, lack of new affordable housing, government not investing sufficiently in schools and healthcare. On the right hand side, subtitled 'No': Picture of small boat, with arrow; 'People fleeing horrific situations that you and I can't imagine'.

Possible causes of your problems. It’s a diagram that (sadly) still seems relevant in 2025, so reposting a year and a bit on.

Oh man, they only do that when they're really scared.

👇

There is a condition amongst British people whereby they DO want baked beans with their full English breakfast, but they DO NOT want those beans to touch any of the other foodstuffs on their plate, and there is a whole industry based around the provision of small ramekins to affect this outcome.

More fuel for the argument that the BBC should shut down its current affairs department and replace it all with More or Less.

This is my favourite sort of post. How wonderful. I like to think of them, together at night.

Chatbots Can Go Into a Delusional Spiral. Here’s How It Happens.

Berger's three laws of chatbotics:

1) The bot should never express emotions.

2) The bot should never praise the user.

3) The bot should never say it understands the user's mental state.

There's no use case for these things, and they're obviously problematic.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/t...