🐾 Dave – The Rambling Donkey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrxn4x7yx2o  Once upon a Monday, not too long ago, In a green Devon park where the tall trees grow, Lived two brown bears, both cuddly and spry— Mish, who was clever, and Lucy, who’d try Anything once (or even twice more!) Especially things behind the enclosure's locked door. They lived in a big, leafy, bear-friendly pen, With logs and a pool and a cave-like den. But on this one day, as the clouds rolled by, A strange little gap caught Mish’s sharp eye. “Lucy!” she whispered, “Come look, come quick! I think this loose gate might just do the trick!” With a nudge and a wiggle and a bear-sized squeeze, They found themselves out among staff things and trees. No one had seen them— not yet , anyway— So they tiptoed (as bears do) and crept far away. Then suddenly, Mish gave a great sniff and grin: “Do you smell that, Lu? That sweet smell within?” They followed their noses, their paws soft and slow, To a little brown shed with a gold...

 Nigel Farage’s announcement of the ‘Britannia Card’ has prompted strong and revealing reactions from the British public, as evidenced in hundreds of comments on both the Daily Mail and BBC News websites. The policy, which proposes allowing non-domiciled individuals to avoid tax on overseas income in exchange for a one-off £250,000 fee, was framed by Reform UK as a bold move to attract wealth and redistribute funds to Britain’s lowest earners. However, public sentiment suggests the idea has landed poorly, even among Farage’s typical support base. Analysis of comments from the Daily Mail —a newspaper with a largely right-leaning, Reform-friendly readership—shows that support for the policy is surprisingly thin. While a minority of users defended the plan as pragmatic or preferable to Labour’s approach, the majority expressed either scepticism or outright hostility. Many described the Britannia Card as a tax dodge for the ultra-rich, with comparisons to Liz Truss’s short-lived eco...

 In a noisy and fractured world, what does it mean to believe? What does it mean to listen — not just to words, but to the presence behind them? Christian faith has always been more than a set of propositions. At its heart, it is mystery: God revealed not just in doctrine, but in love, beauty, silence, and song. The early Church spoke of Christ as the Logos — the divine Word — yet Scripture tells us that before any word was spoken, God said, “Let there be…” Sound came first. Vibration. Breath. Before theology was written down, it was sung, whispered, and wept. God’s voice is not always a clear instruction. Sometimes it’s a groan too deep for words, as Paul puts it. This is the thread that weaves through the Christian life: we are called not just to understand, but to participate — with our hearts, our voices, our lives. The language of theology has long drawn from ancient philosophy. Think of “substance” — the idea that beneath all change and form, there is a deeper reality. ...

 In an age of viral outrage and scrolling headlines, it’s easy to forget a simple truth: not everything we read tells the full story. This has never been clearer than in the recent coverage of guidance from The Brilliant Club, an educational charity that supports underprivileged students. A headline from GB News proclaimed that “Vikings were ‘not all white and some were Muslim’ – pupils to be told in effort to ditch ‘Eurocentric ideas’.” That one sentence, crafted for maximum emotional impact, provoked exactly the kind of furious response it seemed designed to ignite. The article claimed that tutors working in schools were being encouraged to move away from traditional views of Viking history and consider evidence that Vikings were more culturally and genetically diverse than once assumed. It referred to archaeological finds like Islamic coins and a ring inscribed with “Allah,” discovered in Viking graves, and suggested that some individuals may have adopted new religious identiti...