Christopher Howse



Profile:
Full name: Christopher Howse

Area of interest: Religion and Society

Journals/Organisation: The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph

Email:

Personal website:

Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/christopher-howse/

Blog: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/author/christopherhowse/feed/

Representation:

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Biography:
Education:

Career: Joined The Daily Telegraph in 1996 as obituaries editor, now writes leaders, features, reviews and two columns, Sacred Mysteries and Word of the Week; he also has a blog: On language, which focuses on the changing use of language

Current position/role: Letters editor, columnist, reviewer


 * also writes/written for:

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Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight: Why we spend sermons looking at our watches, The Catholic Herald

Broadcast media:

Video:

Controversy/Criticism: I've cracked the code: it's rubbish, on Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, (more criticisms)

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Books & Debate:
Books: AD: 2, 000 Years of Christianity (SPCK Publishing, 1999) ISBN 0281052875; How We Saw It: 150 Years of The Daily Telegraph 1855-2005 (Ebury Press, 2004) ISBN 0091894638; Best Sermons Ever: 2 (Continuum; 2 Reprint edition, 2003) ISBN 0826470971; The Best Spiritual Reading Ever (Continuum; New Ed edition, 2005) ISBN 0826480225; Comfort (Continuum, 2005) ISBN 0826476414; Prayers for This Life (Continuum, 2006) ISBN 0826480713; Assurance of Hope: An Anthology (Continuum, 2006) ISBN 0826482716; She Literally Exploded: The "Daily Telegraph" Infuriating Phrasebook (Constable and Robinson, 2007) ISBN 1845296753; Sacred mysteries: the human face of religion - A "Daily Telegraph" Book OCLC 82672007, 2007

Latest work: A Pilgrim in Spain, OCLC182732212 published by Continuum, 2011 Speaking/Appearances:

Debate:



The Daily Telegraph:
Column name: Sacred Mysteries

Remit/Info: Religion and Society

Section: News

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: Telegraph.co / Christopher Howse

Commissioning editor:

Day published: varies

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length: 700 words



Articles:

 * The miraculous glasshouse that nearly came crashing down - In 1865, the architect G E Street arrived in the city of Leon, Spain, and found that he had got there a year too late. They had just pulled down the south side of the great cathedral. - 28th May 2016
 * Becket’s tour this week from London to Canterbury - 21st May 2016
 * Elegies for the English churches while they stand - 19thMay
 * Dante’s fox leaps from Botticelli’s pen into a crowded vision - 8th May 2016
 * The Abbey’s shrine for Henry VIII’s grandmother - 30th April 2016
 * The most resourceful soul still needs some body - 23rd April 2016
 * St Christopher is more than a car-key charm - 15th April 2016
 * What Samuel Pepys had hidden in his closet - 8th April 2016
 * The ring that Rome gave to Canterbury - 2nd April 2016
 * God is no thing, but he is in charge of things - Rupert Shortt's new book demands explanations in a Christian challenge to the New Atheists - 26th March 2016
 * Did Jesus as a man on earth see the Father? - A brilliant re-examination of the knowledge enjoyed by the human mind of Jesus - 20th March 2016
 * Ankle-length hems for well-dressed Muslim men - Some websites call clothes falling below the ankles "one of the greatest sins" - 13th March 2016
 * Sackcloth and magpies: the habits of the extinct friars - Thriving friars were disbanded 700 years ago, leaving hardly a ghost - 6th March 2016
 * The Essex man who knew what a church was for - The interior of St Mary-le-Bow shows off the work of an architect who lived long after Wren - 27th February 2016
 * The opposite sex and the single saint - If a married woman loved Pope John Paul, was he wrong to continue the friendship? There are some surprising precedents - 20th February 2016
 * Is Alexander the Great depicted in this Oxfordshire church? - St Peter's, Charney Bassett, has something in common with St Mark's in Venice - 7th February 2016
 * Great Scott! Don’t pelt the anti-pew warrior with eggs - Sir Gilbert Scott left countless churches with surprisingly lovely benches - 30th January 2016
 * Stop talking bosh about Hieronymus Bosch - What should we make of these visionary pictures? - 23rd January 2016
 * Cranmer’s words and the bread of angels - The first Masses are being said using a missal approved by the Vatican incorporating familiar passages from the Book of Common Prayer - 16th January 2016
 * The ear-worm that set Sir Tobie wondering - When Augustine was converted in August 386, had he just misunderstood what he heard? - 9th January 2016
 * Building bridges over troubled waters to the next world - Six hundred years ago our ancestors thought good works were to feed the hungry, visit prisoners – and build bridges - 2nd January 2016
 * Westminster’s gift from an infatuated rector - A City church was scandalised by the statue of a bluestocking, but St Margaret's, Westminster, gained a richer legacy - 24th December 2015
 * Taking the tram for a big suburban surprise - A 'nightmarish debauch of High Victorian inventiveness' lurks in leafy Addiscombe - 12th December 2015
 * We don’t need hellfire preachers to tell us we're in a mess - The Year of Mercy starts on Tuesday. But what is this mercy all about? - 6th December 2015
 * If only David Hume and St Thomas Aquinas had met - A brilliant new defence of metaphysics pits the hero of scholasticism against the sceptic - 28th November 2015
 * The 100th year of a life spent finding its purpose - Augustine Hoey left London aged 98 for a new life in his true vocation - 21st November 2015
 * What Daniel meant to the persecuted Egyptians - Why are Daniel in the lions' den and the Hebrew children in the burning fiery furnace often seen in early Christian art? - 14th November 2015
 * Fountains Abbey as the perfection of ruin - The most extensive remains of a medieval Cistercian abbey in Britain owe their preservation to a taste for the Romantic - 5th November 2015
 * Offering a cup of coffee and use of the loo in church - Kitchens and lavatories inside churches are popular but remain controversial - 31st October 2015
 * Coruscating image of an unfamiliar culture - At the Bodleian in Oxford, 100 objects tell the story of Armenia's triumph over exile, invasion and worse - 24th October 2015
 * An Oxford college at the hub of an underground network - The star of St John's was Edmund Campion. New evidence reveals how his fellow-Catholics survived - 18th October 2015
 * Connecting the Sacred Heart and the Rock of Ages - It's not just saccharine 19th-century statues, the Sacred Heart represents a biblical reality - 18th October 2015
 * English timber roofs where a host of angels roost - Winged angels carved on the beams of churches are a very English art. Nowhere has more than East Anglia - 4th October 2015
 * The Englishman who went alone to Mecca - Few British writers had visited Mecca before Eldon Rutter, an enigmatic figure who one day disappeared - 19th September 2015
 * A hymn written for the bright dawn of socialism - “O God of earth and altar” finds plenty of resonance in today's world of terror and disillusion - 13th September 2015
 * A wall of iron built to keep out Gog and Magog - The two giants in London's Lord Mayor's Show surprisingly figure in the Koran too - 5th September 2015
 * I missed my chance to drown the archbishop - Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, thinks it is a Christian thing to help some people kill themselves. He is quite wrong - 22nd August 2015
 * Clothes designed for the kingdom of heaven - A New York exhibition shows how liturgical vestments embodied a language of belief - 15th August 2015
 * The strange case of the dancing Moorish Giants of St Maginus - Tarragona is consumed by 10 drink-filled days' celebration in honour of a very obscure patron saint - 10th August 2015
 * The most grotesque present to give a pope - The story behind Evo Morales's gift to Pope Francis shows that even useful idiots can, through martyrdom, turn into true witnesses - 11th July
 * A family on the edge of the Muslim empire - How Giovanni Bruni confronted the Ottoman empire at the Council of Trent before the battle of Lepanto - 23rd May 2015
 * Women building a library in exile - The independent life of English nuns in a time of persecution is reflected by their books - 16th May 2015
 * A stone enclosure full of angels - a new biography of Lincoln Cathedral recaptures its original atmosphere - 25th April 2015
 * Friend to the first convict colonists of Australia - The Rev Richard Johnson may not have been like the character in Banished, but he was a heroic man - 11th April 2015
 * Durham’s store of history in 10,000 objects - Ushaw is a great ark of treasures of international importance - 4th April 2015
 * Mozarabic chant in deepest Suffolk - Bury St Edmunds finished its Gothic cathedral only 10 years ago. Its choir keeps up a centuries-old tradition - 28th March 2015
 * A new tower for Westminster Abbey - soon visitors will be able to climb 70 feet to the medieval triforium with splendid views into the Abbey church - 13th March 2015
 * An overcoat for a lonely old man - Henry Smith left money to set 'poor people a-worke'. His legacy still thrives - 21st February 2015
 * On her 500th anniversary, what is Teresa’s big idea? - St Teresa of Avila is an agreeable figure and was the first woman to be made a Doctor of the Church. So what is she teaching us? - 14th February 2015
 * A throne like a church spire - Towering 50 feet, the bishop's throne at Exeter cathedral looks all the more astonishing after 700 years - 7th February 2015
 * Unknotting the puzzle of the Pope - A new biography helps untangle the apparent contradictions of this remarkable man - 25th January 2015
 * Troglodytes, topazes and the spring term - what did the man who gave his name to the Hilary term do to be remembered 1,700 years after his birth? - 17th January 2015
 * Achilles defies the force of gravity - Just what did the ancient Greeks believe about the gods? Their anxiety about rituals gives some clues - 27th December 2014
 * Drinking to conscience first and then to the Pope - What would John Henry Newman have made of the Second Vatican Council? Ian Ker has an idea that he knows the answer - 13th December 2014
 * Religions clinging to the Rock - Squashed into Gibraltar's narrow lanes strong traditions of belief thrive - 22nd November 2014
 * Tolkien and the Goths’ disaster - Christopher Howse follows Raymond Edwards in exploring the roots of Middle Earth - 15th November 2014
 * Candlelight high up in churches - Christopher Howse is delighted by a historian's account of surprising activities upstairs in church - 8th November 2014
 * High inspiration in the Fens - Christopher Howse follows the newest volume of Pevsner to find the finest spire in Cambridgeshire - 1st November 2014
 * Sunshine in the City of Saints - Sacred mysteries: Vic in Catalonia was known as the City of the Saints because it produced saints at times that other Spanish towns did not - 25th October 2014
 * Why is the Catholic Church cannibalising the Book of Common Prayer? - The words of the Reformation leader Thomas Cranmer now appear in a new Order of Mass - 18th October 2014
 * Framing a door into heaven - Christopher Howse is delighted to find a historian of picture frames open her new collection of poems with her specialist subject - 4th October 2014
 * Changing minds on marriage - Christopher Howse is worried about divorced Christians at the world synod - 27th September 2014
 * Pilgrim badge for a local saint - Christopher Howse follows the story of a souvenir dropped into the Thames 600 years ago - 20th September 2014
 * The full glory of Miss La La - why Degas' circus aerialist is glorious, but not quite in the way a popular quotation suggests - 13th September 2014
 * Through Dorset by horse and bike - The idea is to drop in on five churches, because it’s Ride & Stride day - 6th September 2014
 * Something that’s like a holy well - Christopher Howse explores the reasons for elaborate canopies over fonts - 30th August 2014
 * The floating glass walls illusion - There was a purpose to the greenhouse wall: to bring light to a choir of monks up half the night by candlelight in the darkness, and to illuminate the liturgy of the Mass - 16th August 2014
 * Classical basilica in rural Kent - Christopher Howse is impressed by the energy of Georgian country church-builders - 2nd August 2014
 * Christians pulled up by the roots - The persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria share a history of holiness and literary and theological culture of which the West is largely ignorant - 26th July 2014
 * Ancient stories under our feet - Christopher Howse discovers an unexpected link between a floor-tile and a National Gallery treasure - 19th July 2014
 * Clever folk being foolish about God - Christopher Howse is surprised that God's presence in the cosmos has become a feminist battleground - 5th July 2014
 * Not a saint but a spelling mistake - Christopher Howse finds that St Ninian, a popular Scottish patron, is an impostor - 7th June 2014
 * The battle against church lavatories - Christopher Howse tracks down a lively campaign in Victorian England to stop lavatories being installed in new churches - 31st May 2014
 * Mindfulness and Teresa’s gnats -Christopher Howse wonders whether the Buddha would have recognised St Teresa's mindfulness as like his own - 24th May 2014
 * No flogging the church treasure - Christopher Howse sees one church treasure barred from sale but another sold for £1.8 million - 4th May 2014
 * Death sentence in Lambeth’s glass - Christopher Howse is bowled over by a colourful study of the Archbishop of Canterbury's chapel windows - 27th April 2014
 * A voyeur in the earthly paradise - Christopher Howse is surprised by the character of A C Benson, the celebrated Edwardian diarist - 19th April 2014
 * The ass, the raven and the cross - At the end of an Ulster street Christopher Howse finds an ancient cross carved with rich imagery - 12th April 2014
 * Things the crow can never know - Christopher Howse enjoys watching a crow but is more impressed by the human ability to learn 'can't' - 5th April 2014
 * Bach and the icon of Jesus’s face - Christopher Howse finds the same object of devotion in a musical oratorio and a traditional image - 29th March 2014
 * The episcopal gadfly of the Church of England - Christopher Howse explores the life of one of the oddest bishops of the past century - 22nd March 2014
 * The ugly duck’s loveliest creation - Christopher Howse is astonished by the rich stained glass of Cork cathedral - 15th March 2014
 * Angelo, Eros and Monte Cassino - Christopher Howse follows a trail from Kensington Olympia to the shrine of St Benedict - 22nd February 2014
 * Pope Pius and the Virgin Queen - Christopher Howse is surprised by an event that brought Queen Elizabeth I and the Pope together in prayer - 15th February 2014
 * The mermaid on the church roof - Christopher Howse is provoked by an exploration of the theme of sirens - 8th February 2014
 * The devil chased out of church - Christopher Howse is worried about more than the dropping of Satan from a ceremony of baptism - 25th January 2014
 * The unfinished story of John Ruskin - Christopher Howse finds touching insights in the last ruin of John Ruskin's mind - 18th January 2014
 * The Pope and the Salvation Army - Christopher Howse finds some common ground between the uniformed evangelists and the man in the Vatican - 11th January 2014
 * The Innocents of Holman Hunt - Christopher Howse finds a Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece fascinating but weird - 27th December 2013
 * Nothing pagan in today’s sunshine - The connections between today, the shortest day, and the feast of Christmas - 21st December 2013
 * The stone at the next Coronation - Christopher Howse is worried about the role of the Stone of Scone since it was ripped from the chair made for it - 14th December 2013
 * Gothic fantasy for a Catholic convert - The life of a compulsive fantasist brightened up Christopher Howse's reading in 2013 - 30th November 2013
 * CS Lewis memorial: A stone for a lover, not for a poet - Christopher Howse muses on why the novelist and poet has been awarded a memorial in Poets' Corner, 50 years after his death - 23rd November 2013
 * Granada – a tale of two mosques - The return of Islam to Spain is not so much a persistent historical presence as an imagined history - 16th November 2013
 * The cathedral in my dreams - Christopher Howse revisits a place that 20 years ago took possession of his sleeping imagination - 9th November 2013
 * Where William Blake was wed - The steeple of St Mary’s, Battersea, is the most striking of the parish churches along the banks of the Thames in London - 2nd November 2013
 * Syrian connection of Minster in Kent - Christopher Howse visits a convent in Kent 1,300 years old, consecrated by an Asian archbishop - 26th October 2013
 * Martyrs need not stoke up hatred - The ultimate sacrifice for one's faith is about 'total love' - 19th October 2013
 * Chance meeting with a desert faun - Christopher Howse is struck by an account of meeting a mythical creature in the desert - 12th October 2013
 * The Gnostic idea that matter is bad - Christopher Howse is delighted by a comprehensible introduction to the strange beliefs of Gnosticism - 5th October 2013
 * Mass, with words by Thomas Cranmer - Christopher Howse is astonished to find the Protestant reformer's prayers adopted by Roman Catholics - 28th September 2013
 * The secret life of William Byrd - Christopher Howse is impressed by a new life of the enigmatic composer William Byrd - 21st September 2013
 * Held in a blanket between dragons - Christopher Howse discovers something that repays the journey to Zamora - 14th September 2013
 * Purple cushions for the geese - The ritual dimension of ancient Roman religion intrigues - 7th September 2013
 * Northamptonshire psalm in stone - The Elizabethan Triangular Lodge guards secrets yet to be deciphered - 31st August 2013
 * Eight oak trees suspended in air - Christopher Howse holds on tight to ancient timbers 100 feet above the ground - 24th August 2013
 * Arthur Sullivan’s greatest hit - Christopher Howse on how the hurriedly written words of 'Onward, Christian Soldiers' gained an equallly rushed tune, making it unforgettable - 10th August 2013
 * Sex, drugs and Shires: Ambridge plays away - The new editor of the Archers comes from Footballers’ Wives. A few things will change... - 7th August 2013
 * Death on the way to Santiago - Christopher Howse on the traditional parallels between pilgrimage and the earthly course of life - 27th July 2013
 * The secret of the Duchess’s tomb - Christopher Howse is delighted by a handbook to Oxfordshire's rich collection of churches - 20th July 2013
 * The Pope’s faith and 'The Idiot’ - Christopher Howse is surprised by a Dostoevsky novel featuring in the Pope's first encyclical - 13th July 2013
 * The first Anglican view of crusaders - Christopher Howse is intrigued by attitudes to Islam on the eve of the English Civil War - 6th July 2013
 * There are many ways to shear a pig, Mr Putin - The Russian president shares his proverbial lore with an Old Master and Eric Cantona - 27th June 2013
 * A danger of being possessed by jinn - Christopher Howse finds that a health leaflet mentions a belief that jinn can cause madness - 22nd June 2013
 * The most moving Victorian church - The church is St Bartholomew, Brighton - 15th June 2013
 * The day Hereford tower fell down - Christopher Howse wonders that Hereford Cathedral is still standing - 8th June 2013
 * The splendour of La Rioja in decay - Britain is lucky with its cathedral cities - 31st May 2013
 * When St Augustine landed in Kent - Christopher Howse looks at the language and politics the religious leader had to overcome when he landed in England in 597 - 25th May 2013
 * A clergyman in the alehouse - A larger-than-life 18th-century archdeacon intrigues Christopher Howse - 18th May 2013
 * Bring fiddleback chasubles back? - Does Anglican patrimony include fiddleback chasubles? If this question means nothing, do not despair, for it is the ecclesiastical equivalent of an interest that rivet-counters or gricers take in the wheel arrangement of locomotives (2-4-0, and so on) - 11th May 2013
 * Jesus’s human flesh and bones -Christopher Howse looks into a row that has divided readers of the Church Times - 4th May 2013
 * The music made by grains of sand - Christopher Howse finds that Thomas Traherne's vigour makes him feel as though he has woken from being half asleep - 27th April 2013
 * The man who rewrote Bunyan - Christopher Howse explores the unlikely origins of the hymn 'To Be a Pilgrim' - 20th April 2013
 * The real prayer of Francis of Assisi - St Francis didn’t write much – and certainly not the prayer that Margaret Thatcher quoted outside No 10 Downing Street in 1979, “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony…” - 13th April 2013
 * The Pope’s motto made in Jarrow - the new Pope's motto was written by an Englishman - 30th March 2013
 * St Francis as the Pope’s patron - Christopher Howse on the saint of Assisi who still inspires parish action and a pope's ideals - 23rd March 2013
 * Anglicans in the heart of Rome - The English in Rome are taking a keen interest in the election of the next pope. It is not quite true, as most of the press have been complaining, that the United Kingdom is “unrepresented” in the forthcoming conclave - 9th March 2013
 * The writing that stays on the wall - stone memorials grace many parish churches. Christopher Howse finds out why new examples are so few - 2nd March 2013
 * Why we won’t get a bearded pope - there are bearded candidates for the papacy, but none will be elected - 23rd February 2013
 * Surrey monastery of a retired pope - Dante put him in hell, but Pope Celestine impressed Henry V - 16th February 2013
 * Adrian Fortescue and his Smufkin - Christopher Howse is surprised by claims that behind a great liturgist's contempt for the Roman Curia lay a deeper scepticism - 9th February 2013
 * Holding a candle in the Temple - A Norfolk window depicts the Temple in Jerusalem - 2nd February 2013
 * When ravens beat their black image - from Wiltshire to Lisbon, Christopher Howse finds a brighter side to the dark reputation of the raven - 25th January 2013
 * The Catholics who embrace T S Eliot - a great modern Anglican poet features in Roman Catholic liturgy - 5th January 2013
 * Running water for Westminster Abbey - the history of supplying water to Westminster Abbey - and of getting rid of it - 29th December 2012
 * Flowery language carved in stone - You mustn’t be annoyed to be told now, when it’s too late for Christmas, that I have discovered the book of the year. But God’s Flowers by M W Tisdall is not a book that you will find on sale in shops or on Amazon - 22nd December 2012
 * What the ox and the ass saw - The only thing I had heard about the Pope’s new book on the infancy of Jesus was that the ox and ass in Nativity scenes had been declared a myth. This turns out not to be so - 3rd December 2012
 * Shock troops mobilised in Dictionary Corner - In a war over foreign words, it’s shameful to pillory a lexicographer who can’t answer back - 28th November 2012
 * Hogarth’s hidden masterpieces - Though work such as Gin Lane is well known, the sacred paintings of William Hogarth are familiar to few - 17th November 2012
 * Essential reading for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby - A new biography of Cosmo Gordon Lang throws new light on the Abdication of Edward VIII and the former Archbishop of Canterbury - 10th November 2012
 * Vital Spark that wouldn’t go out - If you had been walking down a country lane in winter 170 years ago, very likely you’d have heard an old hedger plying his billhook and singing at his work. “Vital spark of heav’nly flame,” he would quaver, “Quit, oh quit this mortal frame.” - 27th October 2012
 * Cup of gold for the see of Canterbury - The method of appointing the Archbishop of Canterbury has been quirky and erratic - 6th October 2012
 * Bedford’s cult of God’s Daughter - Octavia Barltrop was one of the more eccentric new entries to the hall of British fame - 29th September 2012
 * A strange life in a suppressed society - The 'gentlemen at Stonyhurst' saw hope in Russia, where the Pope’s suppression of the Jesuits was never enacted - 22nd September 2012
 * George Orwell’s recipe for ideal treacle tart - Joining up the dots between Orwell's ideal pudding, CS Lewis's ideal England and the insights of St Maximus into the Incarnation - 8th September 2012
 * Big question from Stephen Hawking - The opening of the Paralympics had a cosmological theme and emblematic celestial sphere. “Ever since the dawn of civilisation, people have craved an understanding of the underlying order of the world,” Stephen Hawking said. “Why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” The answers keep changing - 1st September 2012
 * Puddleglum and the quest for the Grail - I had not appreciated the similarity between Puddleglum (not a man, but a Marsh-wiggle) and St John of the Cross until I read Sameer Rahim’s recent incisive interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Telegraph books pages - 18th August 2012
 * Not just crowds of peasants shouting - A misapprehension about “Mystery” plays is that they were shouted by buffoonish players whose naive image of God resembled Brian Glover - 11th August 2012
 * The hidden history of British synagogues - An introduction to the undiscovered world of British synagogue architecture - 4th August 2012
 * Despised art of the Sacred Heart - In search of the true devotion behind the bad art depicting the Sacred Heart - 28th July 2012
 * English flowers on church walls - Christopher Howse is once more bowled over by the whirlwind enthusiasms of Augustus Welby Pugin - 21st July 2012
 * The high art of bright windows - It was often said, even in the Middle Ages, that stained glass was a sort of Bible for the poor, who might not read and could not afford books - 15th July 2012
 * The still centre of the world at Cliffe - The world, wrote the author of the Ingoldsby Legends “is divided into Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Romney Marsh”. Another continent to add is the Hoo peninsula in Kent, best viewed from Cliffe - 7th July 2012
 * The man of Ross cheerful to burn - Christopher Howse is entertained by the eccentric characters in a new anthology from the Welsh marches - 30th June
 * The bodily God of Thomas Hobbes - The ordinary Christian doctrine is that when I die, my body is separated from the soul - 16th June 2012
 * 'I’m Satan, newly come from hell’ - the crux of the poem is a fist fight with a fellow poacher over territory, when Kane knows he is 'fighting to defend a lie' - 9th June 2012
 * Norfolk's finest church magnified - Inside the church that has been called the finest in its county - 2nd June 2012
 * What good ale we had for Whitsun - Christopher Howse goes in search of lost jollities for the Whitsun holiday - 26th May 2012
 * Surprise guest of the Kings of Leon - Christopher Howse goes in search of a saint wrapped in an Arabian tapestry - 19th May 2012
 * Letting the witch out of the bottle - the double standards applied to belief in witchcraft - 28th April 2012
 * The best of books, 1,300 years old - Christopher Howse asks why a book sold for £9 million was made in the first place - 21st April 2012
 * The Dalai Lama and the scientists - What can science make of the practices of Tibetan Buddhism - 14th April 2012
 * The wounds that spell healing - The author acknowledges that Jesus’s ministry of healing put right what was 'wrong' with people - 7th April 2012
 * Devotional high noon at St Paul’s - Sunrise seen from inside Old St Paul’s must have been astonishing - 17th March 2012
 * Why the Koran must not be burnt - Ways of disposing of worn-out holy books - 3rd March 2012
 * Your Lent prayers online or on paper - What the internet can offer in support of prayer in the run-up to Easter - 25th February 2012
 * Work should be the making of us - The economist who quotes a saint on how to give away money - 18th February 2012
 * New prayers for a 'wonderful queen’ - Prayers for less than admirable ruler - 12th February 2012
 * Christmas ends next Thursday - Christopher Howse looks at a Jewish ritual with an honoured place in the Christian calendar - 27th January 2012
 * Migraine cannot explain Hildegard - Hildegard of Bingen has a reputation as a visionary, a musician and a sort of feminist - 21st January 2012
 * Under the crest of the owl and rat - The surprises of Standish, a town near Wigan - 14th January 2012
 * God’s more than a watchmaker - How a misapprehension of the New Atheists has been exploded - 7th January 2012
 * St Joan of Arc’s 600th birthday - The enigma of the voices heard by the French saint - 31st December 2011
 * The man who finished St Paul’s Cathedral - the architect Stephen Dykes Bower should be a household name - 24th December 2011
 * A very Victorian sisterhood - Christopher Howse on the astonishing story of a woman who made Florence Nightingale's Crimean campaign possible - 17th December 2011
 * The ABC of not slurping soup - How children lived 600 years ago - and a song for their patron St Nicholas, alias Santa Claus - 10th December 2011
 * The Ethiopians living on the roof - An ancient African monastery is perched above the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem - 3rd December 2011
 * An inspiring plan for the Jubilee - Sir Christopher Wren wanted an astonishing 372ft spire at the centre of Westminster Abbey. Why not finish the building for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - 26th November 2011
 * I’m just off to find the Holy Grail - Christopher Howse sets off in search of the chalice from the Last Supper - 19th November 2011
 * Who says that you can’t pray? - Christopher Howse meets Sister Rachel, the Catholic nun asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury to write a book - 12th November 2011
 * Calling upon God by his name - the name of God means more than choosing the right four Hebrew letters - 5th November 2011
 * The reason why Leo was Great - A British historian's nomination for the most important document ever issued by a pope - 29th October 2011
 * Knights in cloaks without daggers - The pomp and circumstance of an army of charitable knights - 21st October 2011
 * Buried behind the elephant in Rome - Christopher Howse is intrigued by a bestselling medieval author, whose tomb is hidden in Rome's only Gothic church
 * Ripping the pews out of the church - the trend for removing fixed seating and replacing it with stacking chairs - 8th October 2011
 * A bishop’s home is not his castle - It is alarming that the Church of England is selling off buildings that have been among its treasures for centuries - 1st October 2011
 * Journeying, all in the same boat - impressive stained glass and paintings by an artist who uses an ancient language of imagery - 1st October 2011
 * Paganism, from the Beast to Buffy - Aleister Crowley, witchcraft and modern pagan cults - 17th September 2011
 * Restoring the centurion’s roof - Ritualised language is returning to the English version of the Mass - 10th September 2011
 * A man stoned for gathering sticks - An examination of capital punishment in the Bible - 3rd September 2011
 * church closed by roosting bats'' - Bats have driven worshippers out of a 1,000-year-old church in Yorkshire - and it is an offence to kill, injure or handle the creatures - 27th August 2011
 * wasn’t just painting pictures'' - How a great painting fitted into the devotion of a whole town - 20th August 2011
 * amid rival pagan cults'' - Fascinating new light on the shadowy world of ancient pagan rites - 13th August 2011
 * sect of the rulers of Syria'' - The strange religion of the Assad family - 6th August 2011
 * art, icons are to be adored'' - Sister Wendy Beckett's emphasis on icons as worship is impressive - 29th July 2011
 * in the church choir'' - The misericords are livelier and less marginal than their traditional image - 15th July 2011
 * for a leap in the dark'' - Christopher Howse is pleasantly surprised to hear new music by young composers that seems to connect with the Spanish mystics - 19th June 2011
 * fleshly love still matters'' - Christopher Howse is provoked by a lively and learned biography that takes Dante seriously - 11th June 2011
 * Pugin's finest gift to his country'' - things are looking up for the Victorian architect's most treasured building - 3rd June 2011
 * goes crazy about St Ursula'' - Christopher Howse devours a guidebook to Venice that turns into a psychological thriller - 21st May 2011
 * world turned the right way out'' - Christopher Howse discovers G K Chesterton's appetite for things - 14th May 2011
 * portrait of Pope John Paul'' - Christopher Howse wonders how we shall picture the newly beatified pope - 6th May 2011
 * near Sandringham'' - Christopher Howse finds that the king who rebuilt Westminster Abbey had another favourite shrine, in Walsingham - 29th April 2011
 * sun within him: Thomas Traherne's Easter'' - Christopher Howse on the poet of delight's previously unpublished thoughts about the Resurrection - 23rd April
 * George gets his bank holiday'' - England is jumping the gun this year in celebrating its patronal day - 20th April 2011
 * feet on the dusty ground'' - Christopher Howse discovers an artist-poet with an inner vision - 1st April 2011
 * did the king sack El Greco?'' - Christopher Howse finds no enmity between saints, painters and prelates - 26th March 2011
 * the C of E in words and music'' - Christopher Howse celebrates the anniversary of an unlikely bestseller - 18th March 2011
 * men put into Bible scenes'' - Christopher Howse finds a thread of prayer in Northern Renaissance paintings at the National Gallery - 11th March 2011
 * cursed but cured by blood'' - Christopher Howse finds that flesh and blood are central to the Pope's new book on Jesus - 5th March 2011
 * perfect family film for Easter'' - it was with some relief that I found myself both interested and moved half way through The Way - 2nd March 2011
 * inexplicable hands of Ravenna'' - Christopher Howse is bowled over by the mosaics of Ravenna and discovers an unsolved puzzle - 22nd February 2011
 * phenomena of Pentecostalism'' - Christopher Howse wonders whether Pentecostalism oughtn't to be dated to well before the San Francisco earthquake - 12th February 2011
 * days before the royal wedding'' - Christopher Howse is fascinated by a detail from a lost world - 4th February 2011
 * that thing round your neck?'' - Christopher Howse was surprised by religious medals being called 'charms' - 28th January 2011
 * man whom Tennyson loved'' - Christopher Howse explains why he looks forward to a reading of Tennyson's In Memoriam - 21st January 2011
 * accused of witchcraft'' - Christopher Howse examines a new study of the response to fears of child possession among settlers in Britain - 19th January 2011
 * hidden medieval priory'' - Unearthing the Charterhouse - 7th January 2011
 * and the three policemen'' - Anthony Trollope got into hot water when he crossed a real, live dean, Christopher Howse discovers - 31st December 2010
 * African church in Hampshire'' - The leading church architect of the 20th century found inspiration in North Africa - 17th December 2010
 * and the peeling of Eustace'' - myth and allegory make the latest Narnia film the most satisfying - 10th December 2010
 * hatred of Turks, Jews and papists'' - Luther thought he had a sound reason for his strong antipathies - 3rd December 2010
 * tomb of Jesus in central London'' - The Templars once played a prominent role in the public life of the nation - 20th November 2010
 * the Pope's visit changed'' - A month on from Pope Benedict's welcome to Britain, Christopher Howse weighs the effect - 23rd October 2010
 * hidden medieval priory'' - Unearthing the Charterhouse - 20th October 2010
 * appointment with an angel at Hagia Sophia'' - In Istanbul, Christopher Howse views an angel unseen for 160 years - 27th September 2010
 * Newman caught in bright tessarae'' - John Henry Newman would have approved of being portrayed in mosaic - 21st September 2010
 * love poetry of John of the Cross'' - Christopher Howse discusses the sketch that inspired Salvador Dalí to paint Scotland's best-loved picture - 31st July 2010
 * murder or baptising a dog'' - Christopher Howse looks at the relationship between crime and Canon Law - 24th July 2010
 * the Anglican knapsack'' - 'Heaven and Earth in Little Space' by Rt Rev Andrew Burnham - 22nd May 2010
 * Mysteries: Renting the best seats in church'' - Christopher Howse looks at the history of rented seats in the UK's churches - 8th May 2010
 * it always a sin to be cynical?'' - Is it a sin to be suspicious and mistrustful in the time of our general election - 1st May 2010
 * way Jesus read the Bible'' - 'Covenant and Communion: The Biblical Theology of Pope Benedict XVI' - 13th March 2010
 * can God be inside us?'' - To eat a living person, body and soul, is not usually possible - 6th March 2010
 * Barbara Pym village in Devon'' - Outposts of the Faith, a book with an unusual focus on rural parishes - 27th February 2010
 * isn't the Pope's only battle'' - Pope Benedict can hardly be said to be meddling by stating moral principles - 3rd February 2010
 * is the First Commandment'' - Now the Pope has come out as an ecological activist - 11th January 2010
 * in the Wesleys' hymns'' - The notion of sacrifice in Holy Communion was of profound significance to the Methodist brothers - 12th December 2009
 * royal chapel for Roman Catholics'' - One must hope that when our next king swears his Coronation oath, the Church of England will still figure in it - 7th November 2009
 * an inkling of Anglicanism'' - Choral Evensong on Radio Three is as unknown as Test Match Special - 6th November 2009
 * don't know the Lord's prayer'' - Those who go to church only for funerals and weddings will not to be able to join in with the traditional words of the Lord's prayer - 6th November 2009
 * pious pelican on the Bible page'' - To me, the Authorised Version, or the King James Bible, as the Americans like to call it, is the most famous yet most under-familiar book in the world - 17th October 2009
 * more the sound of bells'' - Britain's long tradition of bell making is under threat - 10th October 2009
 * relics and bones that bring us closer to God'' - the allure of relics beats the human revulsion for dead bodies - 17th September 2009
 * you believe in angels?'' - Theologically, angels are a perfectly respectable notion - 4th September 2009
 * comes dropping flu'' - Church congregations are being made to adjust to swine flu precautions - 8th August 2009
 * no hands at East Hendred'' - Church clocks are a neglected feature of English parishes - 1st August 2009
 * John Calvin really a monster?'' - The two big obstacles to admiring Calvin are a chill authoritarianism and his repulsive doctrine of double predestination - 26th July 2009
 * pub and church worth the journey'' - Christopher Howse visits St Nicholas, Barfrestone, a church unlike any other - 21st July 2009
 * as the oil of the world of work'' - Pope Benedict redefines the market in his new encyclical - 12th July 2009
 * crown of stone for Westminster Abbey'' - The cloister houses a fountain that would grace any sultan’s palace - 4th July 2009
 * the naked green lady sings'' - CS Lewis noted how operatic the climax of his novel Perelandra was - 27th June 2009
 * built while the First World War went on'' - Flower-strewn memorials were part of British life long before the death of Diana, Princess of Wales - 20th June 2009
 * Queen Mary wanted to burn'' - Queen Mary’s abbreviated reign can now be, if not forgiven, at least understood - 13th June 2009
 * men cut in church stonework'' - The curious carving below, of vegetation growing from a man's face, is fixed to the roof at Norwich cathedral. The cathedral has 1,016 roof bosses, the carvings on the underside of heavy keystones in the roof vaults - 2nd May 2009
 * breathes new life into us all'' - This April has been an exhilarating month of changing skies and startling blossoms - 26th April 2009
 * earth and the Son of Man'' - The Bible shows that care for the environment is part of the Christian tradition - 25th April 2009
 * Christian world under Islam's rule'' - A striking fact has changed my view of Islam: that for 400 years, between the Islamic victories of the seventh century until the end of the 11th century, a half of the world's professing Christians lived under Muslim rule - 18th April 2009
 * Trinity and God's 99 names'' - The doctrine of the Trinity - that there is one almighty God who is three persons - is hard enough for Christians to understand, let alone people of other faiths - 5th April 2009
 * own Mesopotamia'' - The call of the muezzin has reached the river Cherwell’s edge - 29th March 2009
 * the Victorians had more fun than us'' - Jeremy Paxman's TV series depicts them as prim and dour – but theirs was an exhilarating and exuberant age - 14th February 2009
 * Mysteries: Finding a life after a sex scandal'' - A tremendous politico-sexual scandal burst in 1885 - 10th January 2009
 * swearing is repellent, like stinking fish'' - After the Ross-Brand scandal, television is on the cusp between washing its mouth out and sinking deeper into the slough of demented cussing - 4th January 2009
 * kings and St John the Evangelist'' - On the feast of St John's church, let us remember the legends behind the works of art that now illuminate our museums - 27th December 2008
 * Mysteries: Sister Wendy's pictures of love'' - The hermit Sister Wendy Beckett has spent the past year working on a book of pictures of St Paul - 13th December 2008
 * life of Rowan Williams'' - The Archbishop sees God as triumphing in failure. Is that a role for which he volunteers? - 6th December 2008
 * off the bishop's bequest'' - The sale of a 63-volume Bible for £55,000 was a thumping great clue in a detective trail to a scandal over which church people are still fuming - 29th November 2008
 * who've lost their memory'' - Readers of the Church Times have seethed up and boiled over in response to an analysis of the Church of England by Jonathan Clark - 22nd November 2008
 * meaning of God's presence'' - 'All her children were taught how to prepare meals," says the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for the philosopher G E M (Elizabeth) Anscombe (1919-2001). This brute fact underlies several stories of guests at her home being fed very odd food by very young children - 15th November 2008
 * Felicitas's handwarmer sold by nuns'' - It was among 350 lots for sale from Stanbrook Abbey in Worcestershire. The Benedictine nuns there are moving to North Yorkshire, to a smaller, newly built abbey - 8th November 2008
 * Command's bombing of Second World War civilians was wilful murder'' - 1st November 2008
 * Howson's harrowing of hell'' - 25th October 2008
 * survival of England's Syon'' - celebrating the life of Katherine Palmer, a woman from the Tudor age who stands out for the strength of her perseverance against calamities - 18th October 2008
 * tax on the font water'' - It is bloody-minded of water companies to profit from categorising churches as if they were commercial enterprises - 11th October 2008
 * Betjeman on the wireless'' - ...on an excellent new Betjeman collection which includes hitherto unpublished poems - 4th October 2008
 * secret of Santo Toribio'' - a trek through the hot mountains of northern Spain to see the veneration of a relic of the True Cross - 27th September 2008
 * the Pope is in Lourdes'' - The Pope's visit to Lourdes marks the 150th anniversary of the appearance of the Virgin Mary to Bernadette Soubirous - 13th September 2008
 * are eating Lichfield Cathedral'' - It may sound like science fiction, but it is science fact - 6th September 2008
 * delightful case of curiosities'' - Thomas More's hat and other curios in Everton - 30th August 2008
 * Newman's miraculous bones'' - What would Cardinal Newman have made of being dug up and of his bones being revered? - 23rd August 2008
 * the Gate of the Year'' - One of the best known yet least known poems was published 100 years ago. It is the poem quoted by King George VI in his Christmas Day broadcast in 1939 - 16th August 2008



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 * Religious education is a matter for parents, not schools - 4th May
 * I shall simply raise my hat to the man who conquered @ - Just when it was least expected, Ray Tomlinson rescued the @ sign from those arithmetic problems which so tortured budding mathematicians - 8th March 2016
 * Are feet getting bigger - or are shoes getting smaller? - Suspicions are growing that that shoe sizes are unreliable - which makes buying online something of a hazard - 1st March 2016
 * Thank you (very much indeed) for not saying: No problem - Foreigners’ phrase-books may tell them that, in reply to thank you, the British say Not at all or Don’t mention it, but it ain’t so - 2nd February 2016
 * Misusing a knife and fork is the eighth and deadliest sin - News that young people are adopting American cutlery habits and using their forks as shovels should alarm all right-thinking Britons - 20th October 2015
 * The love that I share with Jeremy Corbyn – coal plates - The revelation that the Labour leader enjoys taking pictures of iron drain covers is no surprise to the Telegraph's resident operculist - 15th September 2015
 * The chimes of Big Ben do more than keep time to the second - Of all public clocks, Big Ben’s is the most public, with all its associations of New Year crowds or the quiet misty Thames - 26th August 2015
 * I miss old Soho’s smell of heroic failure - Save Soho campaigners point to its creativity but what about the village where people once lived? - 10th August 2015
 * Can’t sing, can’t dance, can’t write joined-up - Children aren't being taught handwriting in Finland. It's coming here next. We're losing our humanity - 1st August 2015
 * Emoji the big new language? I’d rather take to cave art - If we had to carve everything in stone there would be fewer face-covered-with-hands moments of embarrassment - 22nd May 2015
 * Princess Charlotte could still define herself as a Diana - Like Victoria, the baby Princess could take up another of her names – perhaps as Queen - 7th May 2015
 * Do you know what your type is? - Job applicants would be mad to spend too much time agonising about the font that they use for their CV - 2nd May 2015
 * Royal Maundy Money does no earthly good - The Queen’s gifts today are a refreshing change from look-at-me rituals like Red Nose day - 2nd April 2015
 * Richard III will be buried with the rites of tourism - Leicester cathedral has been rebuilt with the king enshrined as a sanctified celeb - 21st March 2015
 * 2015: A good year to be British - Agincourt, Waterloo, Magna Carta... There will be much to commemorate next year – but not everyone will be celebrating - 31st December 2014
 * A sticky story of honeycomb, blood and the fifth Gospel - A new book, 'The Lost Gospel', claims that Jesus was Mary Magdalene’s husband - 12th November 2014
 * The bishops say they don’t hate gays after all - Pope Francis has opened the windows and stopped lobbing the word 'sin’ around - 16th October 2014
 * I'm proud to be a member of the 'dull men' club - Don't mock the so-called 'dull men' of Britain, says Christopher Howse. Their eccentric interests are more fascinating than you could possibly imagine - 4th October 2014
 * Only in England - The odd yet unmistakeable character of English country life is revealed in an evocative new exhibition of photographs - 1st October 2014
 * Simple pleasures are easier than Poohsticks - Noticing our familiar surroundings is less like train-spotting than like waking up anew - 21st August 2014
 * Halt the clash of the grammar titans - It’s time for John Humphrys and Melvyn Bragg to stop squabbling about the 'historic present’. There are bigger battles to fight for the English language - 2nd August 2014
 * Never mind the Swallocks, Spooner was far weirder - Perhaps the high tide of taboo-breaking Spoonerism came in the 1980s with Kenny Everett’s drag character - 23rd July 2014
 * Yaya Toure must feel as if nobody loves him - The Man City footballer now knows what his colleagues probably think of him - 22nd May 2014
 * What’s hidden in the plainest sight - Christopher Howse is delighted by a collection of the best of the poems of P J Kavanagh - 18th May 2014
 * In his prime Bob Dylan’s rhyme gave us kicks by clever tricks - The Bob Dylan manuscript being auctioned at Sotheby's reveals much about the poetic privateer's rhyming processes - 2nd May 2014
 * Coo, what a cheek! The bully of the bird table - It’s time that all the woodpigeons flocking to our gardens learnt better manners - 27th March 2014
 * Gaston and the sharp art of pub conversation - The French pub in Soho had its edge thanks to one man’s knack of excluding bores - 16th March 2014
 * An All Black flag betrays a patriotic country - To base any nation’s flag on a sports team is a sentimental blunder fatal to deeper loyalty - 12th March 2014
 * There’s no jot of shame in leaving the books on your shelf unread - A survey has found that half of an average home’s 138 books go unread. I’m surprised it is as low as a half. Books aren’t meant to be read - 7th March 2014
 * Don’t surrender the martial arts of ceremony - Military pomp is the last thing to cut, for we are in need of its unspoken meaning - 4th February 2014
 * Bishop of Bath and Wells is the latest to be evicted from palace - In place of a modest flat in the palace, the Church Commissioners have spent £900,000 on a house in which to lodge the bishop four miles away - 31st January 2014
 * A killing blooper, courtesy of AutoCorrect - If overactive spelling correction causes you to text rude words, the joke is a very old one - 23rd January 2014
 * The storms are no different – but we are - It’s not the weather that has got worse, it’s our ability to cope - 7th January 2014
 * From Elizabeth Taylor to Archduke Franz Ferdinand: Anniversaries of 2014 - From the great and the good to the mad, bad and dangerous – Christopher Howse looks at the notable lives commemorated this year - 4th January 2014
 * Why are we so obessed with crosswords? - From the Queen to the layman, we’re devoted to these devilish puzzles - 25th December 2013
 * The lonely virtues of a virtual prayer book - Following prayers on the new Church of England phone app is a bit like drinking alone - 5th December 2013
 * Farewell Araucaria, the mixed-up cinephile - More than mere verbal dexterity, crosswords demand that readers enjoy being deceived - 28th November 2013
 * Why don’t books for grown-ups have illustrations? - Sherlock Holmes was defined by his illustrator, but now we leave pictures to Pooh - 22nd November 2013
 * You’re never more than a few yards from real treasure - A lovely Roman eagle is the latest find whose story we must decipher - 30th October 2013
 * Time to wipe the S’miles off the face of the Crok’o Kid - It's silly for the French to rail against English words - 24th October 2013
 * A sordid song and dance over Richard III’s bones - The furious arguments about where and how to bury old Crook Back are ultimately pointless - 25th September 2013
 * Why Seamus Heaney’s last words weren’t the last laugh - It was a brilliant stroke of Seamus Heaney to leave last words that could only be taken as a serious poetic insight - 4th September 2013
 * We’re literally losing the use of our tongue - An infuriating misuse of language has been admitted by the Oxford English Dictionary - 15th August 2013
 * I won’t miss the crop circles, what with cups and rings and sun-dogs - Cornfield pranksters may retire, but natural mysteries hide wheels within wheels - 2nd August 2013
 * Third king unlucky is a curse to be broken - The royal baby will be king after two others, but he can overcome alarming precedents - 24th July 2013
 * Tweets that win a Get Out of Purgatory card - Indulgences via social networks would set Luther hammering, but Dante might approve - 18th July 2013
 * The the or not the the, that is the question - Someone has invented a shorter way of writing 'the'. Is this like a better kind of mousetrap - 11th July 2013
 * All you need is a sunny disposition - We shouldn’t be gloomy about the Met Office’s prediction of wet summers for a decade - 20th June 2013
 * The man who was in at the death of Soho - A star of bohemian booze-and-banter days has died along with his stomping ground - 7th June 2013
 * Plagiarism is the fairy godmother of invention - Kipling knew that to make fiction seem more real, it helps to pretend it is not invented - 29th May 2013
 * Margaret Thatcher's funeral: a miraculous pairing of words and music - The nation discovered its own feelings through the beautifully judged ceremonial of Lady Thatcher’s funeral - 18th April 2013
 * The apricot's irresistible voyage into the English language - The English Effect exhibition shows that words have an untamed life that we can’t overcome - 5th April 2013
 * Pope Francis will not follow Tony Blair - Infallible he may be, but the Pope will not have a Clause Four moment and tear up Catholic doctrine - 16th March 2013
 * Pope election: There will be smoke - The customs and mysteries of the conclave of cardinals as they choose the new pope are explained - 12th March 2013
 * The Arctic secrets of the giraffe, and other animals - The North Pole was clearly the workshop where many much-loved creatures were put through their paces before being let loose on the savannah - 7th March 2013
 * The world bids farewell to Pope Benedict - Part funeral, part jubilee, the Vatican had never witnessed an event like this before. People flocked from all over the globe to acknowledge retiring Pope Benedict - 27th February 2013
 * Money buys happiness? I wouldn’t bank on it - Rolling in cash isn’t a pleasure but an addiction that leaves you unsatisfied - 7th February 2013
 * Have clergymen on the catwalk taken their eye off the ball? - While sympathising with the Swansea ballboy, we are suspicious of anyone motivated to take Holy Orders by the desire to dress up - 25th January 2013
 * The secret to warm feet and marital concord - High street shops report big sales of winter flannel sheets, but the bedclothes revolution lies elsewhere - 18th January 2013
 * When did you last learn poetry to recite by heart? - A recital competition for teenagers will give them something to shout to the wind - 9th january 2013
 * Living in the past is a very modern fantasy - Time travellers are rather selective about which eras and households they visit - 4th January 2013
 * Duchess of Cambridge pregnant: to be a queen - and mother - The intense interest in the Duchess of Cambridge’s pregnancy is nothing new. Royal births have been public property since the days of Queen Victoria - 5th December 2012
 * Shock troops mobilised in Dictionary Corner - In a war over foreign words, it’s shameful to pillory a lexicographer who can’t answer back - 28th November 2012
 * The Future has arrived by post, and it’s full of junk - The sign 'No Junk Mail' is a refusal to accept reality on its own terms - 15th November 2012
 * John Betjeman’s Britain: extracts from a new collection of his work - A new book celebrating John Betjeman’s columns for the Telegraph reveal the debt we owe the great man, whose trenchant opinions have proved surprisingly modern - 10th November 2012
 * Norman Shaw's comfortable counterblast to Modernism - The great knack of Norman Shaw was to design houses that everyone would like to live in - 3rd November 2012
 * Celebrate by Pippa Middleton - review: What is the point of this thick, colourful book, except as a sort of cultural tea bag for the American market? - 3rd November 2012
 * Ash disease: how the loss of trees is changing our landscape - 100,000 ash trees have been cut down so far to combat the fungal disease - 2nd November 2012
 * Some people always look on the blight side of life - Experts say that if you grow potatoes yourself they will become diseased and infect the whole allotment - 17th October 2012
 * Will the handwritten clues to who we are be consigned to history? - Take it as read, says a new book, writing by hand is well on the way to extinction - 5th October 2012
 * The Hobbit unearths a hoard of myths - 'The Hobbit' provides England with the mythology it has lost. Always, even in Tolkien’s most trivial tales, there are hints of forgotten roots - 30th September 2012
 * Manet’s a portraitist who puts as much care into a lemon'' - A blockbuster exhibition of Manet's portraits is to be mounted at the Royal Academy in January - 28th September 2012
 * 'Citizen Khan’ is not racist, but it’s not funny either - The programme's offence is to bring back sitcoms to the slavery of one-liners - 13th September 2012
 * Ignore the sock puppets, they won’t bite you - Calm down. Authors who give their own books glowing reviews are nothing new - 5th September 2012
 * London’s buildings are real Olympic stars - It’s rakey, rakey time at Horse Guards, then a marathon tour of the City’s historic streets - 9th August 2012
 * Britain’s Olympics bells are an ancient noise - Tomorrow at 8.12am, give us a ring in the morning - 26th July 2012
 * Reincarnation? Surely we’ve been here before - At least Joanna Lumley doesn’t indulge in celebrity memoirs from a past life with royalty - 29th May 2012
 * The Bumbo is behind the ironing-board in the loft - The idea of people accumulating stuff that needs to be housed with them is a new one - 17th May 2012
 * A journey with Nikolaus Pevsner to the very edge of Englishness - There are few more delightful places than the Herefordshire countryside in spring - 6th May 2012
 * At a roadworks near you - the worst sound in the world - Dustcarts and construction vehicles are the noises that make Christopher Howse want to scream - 4th May 2012
 * When you sound too posh to earn the dosh - Neither dukes nor dustmen get a look-in with employers who like easy listening - 12th April 2012
 * Pugin: the man who made the Steam Age medieval - At the bicentenary of that Victorian whirlwind, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, there's real cause for celebration - 19th February 2012
 * A ban on playground slang? Not bloody likely! - A child’s mastery of patois should be a step towards the language that will land him a job - 16th February 2012
 * Keep your claws out of Wikipedia’s anthill - It may have its dark byways, but the online enterprise has an agreeably lived-in feel - 18th January 2012
 * 2012: All this and a diamond jubilee, too - Fifty years ago, Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to the US president, Rudolf Nureyev gave Margot Fonteyn her first dance – and next year is the centenary of Captain Scott's bold failure to reach the South Pole. Christopher Howse considers the milestones of the year - 30th December 2011
 * Chop down that Christmas tree, Paxman! - The Newsnight tree row is a reflection on the decorations horror we all face at this time of year - 20th December 2011
 * Poets’ Corner is a white elephants’ graveyard - No one could envy Ted Hughes’s admission to Poets' Corner - 7th December 2011
 * The cost of coffees puts the mochas on prosperity - Starbucks' plan to open 200 new shops is not the economic blessing it might seem - 2nd December 2011
 * If the English don't speak English, who does? - Dr Mario Saraceni has wrongly called on the millions who speak English around the world to lay claim to the language, rather than us - 3rd November 2011
 * Hallowe’en simply can’t be tacky enough - The sillier the merchandise, the clearer it is how little this fake festival has to do with Christianity - or even paganism - 30th October 2011
 * As libraries close, is that the end of the stories? - The widespread disappearance of public libraries can be avoided - 15th October 2011
 * Bad manners are still in very rude health - The Young Foundation says 'there is no objective evidence' of a decline in courtesy. Christopher Howse begs to disagree - 10th October 2011
 * The dark secrets of St James's Park - The discovery of Robert Moore's body on a small island is the latest odd event in the Royal Park near Buckingham Palace - 4th October 2011
 * talent seen as fairground freakery'' - Not many will remember Rory Weal for what he said at the Labour Party conference - just that it was odd for a 16-year-old to say it - 28th September 2011
 * With a new Pevnser, the Wirral's my oyster - A visit to Port Sunlight, guided by the latest addition to the Buildings of England - 25th September 2011
 * The energy-efficient lightbulbs that keep us in the dark - Poisonous, hazardous and too dim to read by, whose bright idea was the energy-saving bulb? - 2nd September 2011
 * Wodehouse was foolishly naive over Nazis'' - PG Wodehouse was more of a silly dupe than a Nazi collaborator - 26th August 2011
 * words don’t die, they just wait to be rescued'' - Dictionary-makers should know better than to say that words ever become extinct - 23rd August 2011
 * terrible secret of the goat on your plate'' - Kid may be fine when eaten abroad, but it will never be on the menu for Sunday lunch - 9th August 2011
 * papyri: frankly, they're still all Greek to me'' - The secrets of countless papyri are revealed - but what answers do they yield? - 27th July 2011
 * good man under a cloud'' - Cardinal Newman suffered mistrust from some of his new coreligionists, but it was nothing to William Lockhart's trials - 23rd July 2011
 * considered as one of the fine arts'' - There’s nothing like a good deathbed scene. But rehearsals prove more problematic - 15th July 2011
 * Life of Muhammad, BBC Two: why Islam forbids images of its prophet'' - Ahead of BBC Two's documentary, The Life of Muhammad, Christopher Howse explains why the programme took care not to show images of Islam's prophet - 11th July 2011
 * Burnley accent speaks louder than words'' - A Bombay call centre’s move to Lancashire is a counterblast against a fake heritage industry - 5th July 2011
 * Hari plagiarism row: It ain’t what you say, it’s the way they invent it'' - Our most memorable words are not those that are plagiarised, but those we never said - 30th June 2011
 * a pilgrimage to the ancient Kingdom of Castile'' - In a new book on Spain, Christopher Howse sets out to see the country as a pilgrim, celebrating the glories of its ancient churches and shrines. Here he takes a walk into the hills around Segovia - 16th June 2011
 * Desert Island fantasies of self-disguise'' - The radio show is not really about music, but about seeing through celebrities’ life stories - 24th May 2011
 * The deadly sin of nailing a triple-word score'' - Hell's jaws yawn open for Scrabble masters who know a qaimaqam from a qinghaosu - 10th May 2011
 * Roberts' most daunting challenge'' - Can Matt Roberts, whose summer fitness guide is free in next weekend’s Telegraph, get Christopher Howse to swap city suit for jogging pants? - 6th May 2011
 * wedding: Why the Middletons are about to be impaled'' - Heraldry is an utterly useless art – which makes a coat of arms so very desirable - 20th April 2011
 * there's no stopping Jedward'' - Irish singing twins Jedward, who have earned the biggest paycheck in 'X Factor' history despite coming a poor sixth in the show, prove you can't keep a good one-hit wonder down - 14th April 2011
 * Bible's Buried Secrets: old hat and nothing to do with religion'' - Francesca Stavrakopoulou’s King David was a straw man put together in order to be pulled down -16th March 2011
 * Brown never has the last laugh...'' - Wild indiscretion seldom enlivens the diaries of Gordon Brown's better half - 22nd February 2011
 * any good books lately, Prime Minister?'' - Novels are an unreliable diet for building up political leaders - 3rd February 2011
 * I've heard that one before'' - Imitation is more than flattery, it's the soul of wit, as someone said - 20th January 2011
 * Tutankhamun is history now'' - By being locked out of Tutankhamun’s tomb, we shouldn’t feel we are missing anything - 19th January 2011
 * people in Southwell'' - Christopher Howse discovers a rich Trollopian portrait of clerical life in the Victorian countryside - 7th January 2011
 * is now time to bury my decapitated head'' - Christopher Howse is prompted by the identification of the head of a long-dead king to address the issue of his own skull - 16th December 2010
 * to make a complete berk of yourself'' - You can’t blame either Spooner or Freud for James Naughtie’s bloomer on Radio 4 - 7th December 2010
 * no shame in not wearing a cross'' - Christianity’s trappings require no special pleading - 2nd December 2010
 * glad David Cameron’s jokes are violent'' - Christopher Howse rejoices that sex and fat men are still subjects for laughter - 26th November 2010
 * Wedding: The strange origin of royal fairy tales'' - The big day at the altar has not always been one of unbridled joy - 17th November 2010
 * wonder of Spam is that we call it food'' - Christopher Howse is caught between the Scylla of slow starvation and the Charybdis of luncheon meat - 12th November 2010
 * to the Soulcakers going about their mysterious mummery'' - Christopher Howse prefers an old Cheshire custom to supermarket Hallowe'en - 7th November 2010
 * words cause us all to stumble'' - As 'Countdown’ shows, a rude word can trip up even the serious-minded - 6th November 2010
 * I remember Staines – the name'' - Christopher Howse hopes that the town will treasure its shop-soiled toponym - 2nd November 2010
 * ain't what you say. . .'' - As the Untouchables of India plan to open a temple to honour the English language, Christopher Howse looks at how its shifting usage defines class and culture - 29th October 2010
 * welcomes thoughtful visitors'' - Christopher Howse is unconvinced by a scheme to entice philosophers to rural Wiltshire - 19th October 2010
 * be seen dead in an ill-dressed grave?'' - Christopher Howse rues the coming of new funerary rites that find a place for teddy bears - 13th October 2010
 * day to wrestle with God'' - The most surprising thing about Gauguin is his interest in religion - 9th October 2010
 * what furrows are'' - how G K Chesterton found joy in reality - 7th October 2010
 * fire: We don't want to see the end of the pier'' - After the Hastings fire, we should cherish the structures that remain - 7th October 2010
 * had an unlikely part in The Lord of the Rings'' - Standing in a field on the edge of the Lickey Hills on Sunday, I caught a breath of Tolkein's mythical version of England - 21st September 2010
 * modesty is something to boast about'' - what happened to a generation of heroes like Eileen Nearne - 15th September 2010
 * man feels a yearning to live in a shed'' - Christopher Howse hears the siren song of the flowerpots and the workbench - 7th September 2010
 * trendy décor, the writing's on the carpet'' - Christopher Howse fears Barack Obama's idea of messages on household items - 2nd September 2010
 * makes us beastly to pets?'' - The fate of Lola, the wheelie-bin cat, smacks of a traditional taste for cruelty that brings out the animal in us - 29th August 2010
 * Holmes in old churches'' - A sharp eye for details is essential to discover clues from the past - 28th August 2010
 * libraries: A pint of best bitter and a Cider with Rosie'' - Christopher Howse drinks in the benefits of a volunteer library in a pub - 25th August 2010
 * Russell versus faith in God'' - Which comes first, faith or philosophical proof? Christopher Howse on the latest twist in the controversy - 21st August 2010
 * tall tower in Twickenham'' - More city churches were demolished in peacetime than were bombed by the Luftwaffe - 14th August 2010
 * tall tower in Twickenham'' - More city churches were demolished in peacetime than were bombed by the Luftwaffe - 14th August 2010
 * in an Orkney summer'' - Long summer days can prove a challenge to Muslims during a month-long fast - 7th August 2010
 * pilgrim way to Santiago is clogged by throngs of egos'' - Hundreds of thousands make the trip, but what exactly are their motives - 5th August 2010
 * embarrassing poem for Chelsea Clinton's wedding'' - Poor Chelsea Clinton, at last escaping from her parents to the happy hunting ground of marriage, only to have her choice of wedding poem mocked - 2nd August 2010
 * wondered how ships were made?'' - Ever wondered how ships were made? At the restored Chatham dockyard, you can find out - 27th July 2010
 * next, policemen in pyjamas?'' - Uniforms serve a purpose – we don't want constables dressed like criminals - 20th July 2010
 * last rites of Beryl Bainbridge'' - Death was one of Beryl Bainbridge's favourite subjects - 17th July 2010
 * hard slog that refreshes the soul'' - As 250,000 hardy devotees join the trek to Santiago de Compostela, Christopher Howse explains the growing appeal of pilgrimages - 11th July 2010
 * giant, a bonfire and a mosque'' - St John's Eve just isn't what it used to be - 18th June 2010
 * first editions is a kind of madness'' - Buy beautiful old books, not first editions - 3rd June 2010
 * popes to pirates, it's a wonderful life'' - The 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' is a timeless joy - 27th May 2010
 * Rowan Williams damned Henry VIII to hell?'' - King Henry VIII might be in hell, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested the other day in a sermon - 19th May 2010
 * takes a lot to make an Englishman cross'' - The pelican protester of Chideock follows a great tradition of peaceful resistance - 6th May 2010
 * blossom is blooming marvellous'' - Christopher Howse is uplifted by the appearance of blackthorn, hawthorn and cherry flowers - 28th April 2010
 * a good book is undone by its cock-ups'' - A recipe book calling for “freshly ground black people” has been pulped. Little wonder - 22nd April 2010
 * was born on a wet day in 1839'' - Half of women do not think their partners “true gentlemen”, and more than half complain that they are left to carry heavy shopping. Well, what do you expect - 15th April 2010
 * turn our radios into useless junk'' - Christopher Howse fears the effects of making us all use digital radios that don't even work - 8th April 2010
 * Pullman: Christ as Judas, in the Jeffrey Archer genre'' - Christopher Howse is disappointed that Philip Pullman has erased the myth from the Gospel in his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ - 31st March 2010
 * made a fortune - now let it go'' - There are sound religious and social reasons for giving your millions away - 23rd March 2010
 * us streets that are narrow and crooked'' - We prefer the unplanned Shambles to the grandest Bath crescent - 9th March 2010
 * Barbara Pym village in Devon'' - Outposts of the Faith, a book with an unusual focus on rural parishes - 27th February 2010
 * Rawnsley on Gordon Brown: biographical betrayals aren't what they were'' - Trivia about Gordon Brown are no match for the stuff we once relished - 22nd February 2010
 * the term of the decade? It's a war of words out there'' - we must look beyond vogue words in order to pinpoint social trends - 15th January 2010
 * is the First Commandment'' - Now the Pope has come out as an ecological activist - 11th January 2010
 * real Dark Ages, dulled by fashion and TV'' - We can't sing, dance or paint and we wear ugly clothes. Yet we patronise past centuries as inferiors - 13th December 2009
 * and Dec are the establishment now'' - War heroes are a dying breed. TV heroes engage the attention of the public for 3.8 hours a day, thus earning a place in Who's Who - 8th December 2009
 * stations have turned into little hells'' - Manchester is not alone in making passengers miserable - 18th November 2009
 * Mail strike: the last post'' - As a national strike threatens the future of Britain’s mail system, Christopher Howse laments the demise of the trusty postman - 18th October 2009
 * is still a place of refinement and fresh air'' - it's easy to patronise the suburbs: just mention gnomes and popular poems. Yet anyone who tries that easy game should be knocked down with a chair leg - 15th October 2009
 * Gladstone: A prime minister who read books'' - A fascinating study of the man and his books has been pieced together by Ruth Clayton Windscheffel in Reading Gladstone - 8th October 2009
 * and Constable: we've lost the art of feuds for art's sake'' - 19th-century art bred hotter rows than we can muster today - 23rd September 2009
 * Dylan on satnav is all wrong'' - Bob Dylan's voice gravelling out instructions to turn left in 50 yards is not a welcome prospect - although Joanna Lumley would be another matter - 26th August 2009
 * giant - or a nasty piece of work?'' - William Golding was not the only celebrated author to have a shady past - 19th August 2009
 * do love to be beside the seaside, for a while'' - The plan to make a single path along the English coast is misguided: there is plenty to look at just inland - 2nd August 2009
 * war: Church Road versus Church Lane'' - As a class war breaks out in Kent over the renaming of Church Road as Church Lane, Christopher Howse examines the snobberies attached to certain place names - 28th July 2009
 * landings: That's one small quotation for a man. . .'' - Following a claim that Neil Armstrong did not think up his famous phrase himself, Christopher Howse finds that no one said what you thought, and someone else said it first - 22nd July 2009
 * us from Betjeman Country'' - What would the poet have made of the listing of a street in Pinner? - 15th July 2009
 * window-frames will rot your soul'' - everyone needs protecting from UPVC, not just architectural snobs - 24th June 2009
 * myth of the anatomy lesson'' - Leonardo da Vinci dissected an aged patient but he did not get into trouble - 11th June 2009
 * George's Day: You can't breathe life into fossils'' - Foreigners celebrate St George's Day better than the English because we lack a living tradition for the occasion - 23rd April 2009
 * please, even earplugs don't ease my misery'' - Three or four nights of being kept awake is strangely disturbing - 19th April 2009
 * at the end of the tunnel: why the train is still the best way to see the country'' - The reopened Wareham to Swanage branch line is a triumph for lovers of train travel - 4th April 2009
 * orator's way with words is to weigh every one'' - Winston Churchill knew that only history can make a speech memorable - 29th March 2009
 * the bureaucrats' swarm of buzz-words'' - council jargon betrays delusions of grandeur in half-dead brains - 19th March 2009
 * Britain untidy'' - Our throwaway society is paying a high price for its addiction to litter - 10th March 2009
 * excuse for an apology from our bankers and politicians'' - Imagine Gordon Brown settling down for the cameras, in an armchair next to an elegant table lamp, and saying "Sorry I sold the gold", while a lone tear coursed down his sad, battered face - 5th March 2009
 * brings out the best of British'' - Snow brings out the best in people, if only our over-cautious officials would permit us to show it - 3rd February 2009
 * it snow, let it snow, let it snow'' - Get your skates on. The boreal blasts are turning your ponds to iron and your canals to strips of steel. The weather man says tonight they will freeze to adamant - 6th January 2009
 * words that train the ear'' - If you are the kind of person who buys Christmas cards in the January sales, you will be glad to hear that the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book is already in the shops. Lent begins on February 25 - 21st December 2008
 * history of happiness'' - European culture has been driven by the search of happiness since the fifth century BC but could a TV monk have the answer - 20th November 2008
 * really doesn't matter if its is it's or it's is its'' - I wish we could break free from the petty tyranny of the little mark of punctuation - 12th November 2008
 * snow sensation'' - Why snow in the capital - the first October snow shower for 70 years fell this week - is different - 29th October 2008
 * this autumn; there's no rewind button'' - Christopher Howse finds that this short season repays a little attention with memorable pleasures - 21st October 2008
 * is a donkeys' bridge we all must cross'' - 9th September 2008
 * is our national emblem'' - Can't stand the rain? Christopher Howse says that perhaps it's time change our attitude to wet weather - 5th September 2008
 * countryside is a bewildering desert'' - Christopher Howse laments the passing of old Ordnance Survey symbols and the corresponding loss of a rural civilisation - 29th August 2008
 * every last man in the book'' - Banning the word man rewrites history and makes Shakespeare a sexist - 27th August 2008
 * Claudia Jones and Marie Stopes deserve the stamp of distinction?'' - The Royal Mail is celebrating "Women of Distinction" with a new set of stamps but is there any woman more distinguished than the Queen - 22nd August 2008
 * plenty to do this bank holiday weekend'' - Bank holidays are always a bad time to get out into the countryside, but that doesn't mean people will stay in front of the television - 21st August 2008
 * flinty treat at Southwold'' - Gordon Brown is a lucky man. He is enjoying a holiday in Southwold, Suffolk, where he may visit the lovely medieval church of St Edmund - 2nd August 2008



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