Today I qualify for my State Pension, delayed in recent years from 65 to 66 years old. It was a long time coming. I am sure my mother thought the same when she was finally delivered of her second son at 15 minutes after midnight! Like the Royals, what do you give to people who …
Category: Biography
Repurposed medicines
Repurposed medicines are well-known medicines being used for a new purpose. Sometimes a new medication's side effects prove more useful than its original purpose. Amiodarone was originally developed to treat thyroid disease, but its 'side effect' on the heart proved so useful that it is now a heart medicine with side effects on the thyroid! …
2020 and 20/20 Vision
20/20 vision indicates excellent eyesight, so we may hope that 2020 will be a year of Vision for the UK having left the European Union. My first 20 years Roughly, the first 18 years of my life were spent in the UK outside the European Economic Community (EEC) and the remaining 47 years were spent …
John Bunyan and biblical metaphors
I attended a useful lecture last night on The Forgotten John Bunyan, whose Pilgrim's Progress is a Christian classic. The adjective 'Forgotten' in the title referred not so much to Bunyan himself but in part to Bunyan's language, imagination and use of metaphors, which were controversial in 17th-century British Christianity. Pilgrim's Progress is sometimes described …
Reunions and Partings
The One Show on BBC 1 tonight draws attention to reunions and partings. I was watching this programme because the results of the BBC programme 20th-century Icons are announced on it. The finalists were clarified in tonight's programme and I have updated my blogpost. However, the same show had a marvellous story about the reunion …
The 20th-century Icon
Rarely can it be so clearly demonstrated that people, and even whole societies, cannot see what is plainly in front of their eyes. Not only is this a theological truth, illustrated by the atheism believed by intelligent people, but the current BBC2 series Icons is yet another example of this common phenomenon. The aim …
Iolaire memories
The centenary of the Iolaire disaster should not pass without comment, although it is a sad way to begin 2019. It was even sadder for those affected in the Outer Hebrides in 1919 awaiting their loved ones' return from the horrors of the First World War. It is appropriate that the centenary is properly commemorated …
An Introduction to Zugology
Zugology is the theology of balanced Christianity. It is a new branch of theology that overarches all current branches of theology, being the summation of them all. Systematic theology, biblical theology, historical theology, experimental theology, comparative theology, etc. The list goes on. Zugology is that branch of theology which requires the balancing and integrating of …
Edward P. C. Greene 1937–2018
Not many Free Presbyterians will have an obituary in The Times. So today's obituary of Edward Greene, former elder in the London congregation of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, is a rare event. Edward was larger than life, physically and phenomenally. A day in the life of Edward Greene was rarely normal. It was …
Memory lane – 40 years on
A self-select band of 1978 Graduates visiting the Wolfson Medical School Building, the University of Glasgow, on 5th October 2018. On Friday and Saturday this week I met with 'old' medical colleagues whom I had not met for 40 years. It was the 40th anniversary of the 1978 Gamma Year Club, the Medical class who …
