Welcome to my website! There are various sections to the site; this homepage shows you the more recent / popular content in each area. Happy exploring!
Recent Blog Posts
A Time to Live ... and a Time to Die? Presentation on Assisted Dying
On 4th February, at Trinity Church Scarborough, I led a teaching evening on the subject of assisted dying. I won't rehearse the reason in this blog post, as it was all covered in the presentation. Suffice to say that the UK government is currently debating a private member's motion to legalise assisted dying.
Not everyone could come to the evening, so we produced a video version of the resource. This material may well interest people wider than our church in Scarborough, so I'm sharing it here.
Adding Sidebars to the Radix base theme for Drupal
This is the third post in a series. I wrote about my experiences moving this website from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10, and then zeroed in on theming the site using Radix as a base theme. Out of the box, Radix subthemes don't generate sidebar regions for block placement, something many websites want.
As a way to illustrate theme development using Radix, and as a recipe for a common site-building requirement, this post will walk through how to add sidebars to a Radix subtheme.
The Parable of the Excuses (Luke 14) and Deuteronomy 20
Many modern Christians are familiar with Jesus' parable in Luke 14:15-24. The NIV entitles it, "The parable of the great banquet". I wish to give it a new name temporarily: "The parable of the great excuses". Although, once we've looked at it in context, we shall see the NIV has the emphasis right after all.
Popular Blog Posts
While Shepherds Watched their Yorkshire Flocks
Several years back I wrote about a discovery that the carol, While Shepherds Watched not only fits to the tune of On Ilkley Moor Baht 'at, the Yorkshire folk tune, but that may even have been the original tune.
How To: Insert New Line / Line Break in Microsoft Word using VBA
In Microsoft Word, there's all the difference in the world between a new paragraph and a new line. To insert a new paragraph, press the Enter key. If you have "show all characters" turned on, you'll see each paragraph break with its "backwards P" icon. Each paragraph in Word has its own properties. It can have extra space above or below, it could be indented from the left / right margins, with the option of different indentation for the first line. To insert a new line, press Shift + Enter.
Which Parish do I live in?
Are you trying to find out which Church of England Parish you live in? Simply visit the link below and put your postcode into the search tool. Note, they've changed their website. You now have to wait after entering your postcode, and select one of the autocomplete entries served by Google maps; only then can you click the arrow button to begin your search. https://www.achurchnearyou.com/
Recent Sermons
Let me ask you a question: Do you need to be good in order to go to heaven? Do you have to do good works, good deeds, to get to heaven? That is a really important question, is it not? Because where you spend eternity really matters. This life we live in now is short; the most any of us will get is probably 100 years, relative to which eternity is a very, very long time. So where you get to… Read more
Well, like almost every grown-up, I have forgotten almost everything they taught me when I studied for my GCSEs. However, when we did GCSE English, we had to read some novels of a 19th-century author called Thomas Hardy. Not to be confused with the present-day actor of the same name.
Thomas Hardy wrote novels that often featured the lives of ordinary people who were just up against the… Read more
Have you ever felt hemmed in? Your problems are so vast, there is no way out you can see, so that you just feel claustrophobic? Trapped. Squeezed.
If so, this Psalm is for you.
Under pressure. Pressure pushing down on me. Pressing down on you, no man ask for. Under pressure that burns a building down. Splits a family in two. Puts people on streets. It's the terror of knowing what… Read more
You'll also find me in a few other places online, such as …
Other Websites
I also maintain a few other websites:
- Mandelbrot ExplorerThis is an easy to use, totally free, fractal explorer — explore the Mandelbrot Set and the Julia Sets, starting with one of 6 inbuilt colour schemes, but with a totally flexible layers-based way to colour your fractals exactly as you wish. There are many other features - visit the website to find out more. Visit mandel.org.uk
- Books by Mary OakleyMy late grandmother compiled 5 little booklets of poems and prayers that helped her at various stages of her life. Visit the website to find out more about these booklets, or to order online. Visit lifetocome.co.uk
- Trinity Church ScarboroughThe church in North Yorkshire where I'm associate minister / pastor. Visit trinityscarborough.org.uk
Social Media
I use social media more to follow others and to keep in touch than I do to post information of my own. Nevertheless, occasionally I'll post things. Find me on:
