Howard Morland

@BBCNewsnight On an irrelevance, why is it necessary to clutter with mugs during a half-hour programme? A few glasses of water I could understand. And how about a new table, or fix the surface?

"I would prefer to have retained Churchill... it's so important that we remember that he and his generation fought fascism..." Catherine Atkinson, Labour MP, on the news that historical figures will be replaced by wildlife on bank notes. #Newsnight

Wise words for Lent: “We were made for more than our schedules, to-do lists or the expectations of others. We were created to spend time in the presence of God. To know Him and be known by Him. To be refreshed and redirected in order to fulfill our God-given purposes. ‘TheChosen’

@MbarkCherguia My grandfather won a cup for growing monster turnips, which the middle-class villagers called swedes

I’m currently having a blazing argument, please help me settle this once and for all. What is this???

#VernonKay let’s just say I would like to put you in a small room with #AndrewFlintoff…And he who speaks about what he does not have a clue about is an embarrassment. Anyway I will be off to cricket nets tomorrow with other 70 year olds from Wiltshire Seniors… Howard

An empty House of Commons for one of the century’s great speeches by @danny__kruger. It was a privilege to be in the Chamber to hear it. @reformparty_uk isn't ashamed of our Christian inheritance.

@darrenpjones @lewis_goodall From an academic perspective diversity must be limited within the host culture, if society is to remain sufficiently cohesive to thrive. As a catch-all slogan it is not only fairly meaningless, but actually toxic if not managed well in political policy.

The battle for Britain in the years ahead is between a modern, diverse Britain led by Labour or a dark, divisive Britain under Reform. All of us in the Labour Party must get behind the Prime Minister, rise to the challenge and deliver a richer, fairer and stronger future.

@TruthCourse @KensingtonRoyal Wasn’t it Paul the Apostle who said that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave or free etc? Such a huge cultural shift that we are only just working through. I love the Kingdom of Heaven and if only our eyes, hearts and minds (including mine) could be even more open

@KensingtonRoyal Not only is appointing a female to lead the Church of England un-Christian, this is anti-Christian. Shame on everyone played a role in this appointment and shame on the Royal Family for welcoming it.

A pleasure to meet the new Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally at Lambeth Palace - the first female leader of the Church of England.

Most of the things we worry about never happen. But the time we spend worrying is time we don’t get back. Better to focus on what we can control. Our attitude. Our effort. The next step forward. One steady step at a time usually beats a thousand “what ifs”.

Trying to buy a casual suit for a wedding - #JohnLewis and #MarksandSpencer clearly do not want me as a customer viewing their websites . So be it. JL also split suits up making finding each part ridiculous

@MadsDavies @timothy_stanley Late Rev David Watson said in a sermon that asking if I believe in God is rather like asking if I believe in my wife - both are experienced as real relationships. I know what he meant.

Virginia Woolf writing to her sister in 1928 about T S Eliot's conversion . . . lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/…

#AppleTV seem incapable of filming a #MickHerron novel - in this case ‘Down Cemetery Road’ - without the repeated use of ‘fucking’ which is offensive. And now I have offended myself! But it had to be said. Many of us do not use foul language because it diminishes us if we do.

One of the star food performers this Christmas has been #Waitrose #turkeyjoint. One of the best ever tasted and even my wife said it was delicious- and she is not keen on turkey!

Could someone please put together a series of video clips on Insta of #BBC1breakfast presenters repeatedly saying ‘good morning’ to Carole the weather person who is standing next to them. Do they think we are daft?

#facemasks #flu My two nearest pharmacies do not have #medicalgrademasks and had no clue when they might have some. Great Britain I mourn for you.

@secyorkshire York

The way I met Tom Stoppard was unforgettable – over twenty years ago: a producer wanted to make a movie of one of my earlier books, Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar and he said he wanted me to meet the script writer. I was already wildly overexcited because the producer was Mick Jagger but when I arrived at dinner, imagine my almost dizzy bedazzlement when I found out the screenwriter was… none other than Tom -who himself looked like a rockstar, Byronically handsome, with rocknroll hair that he never lost and who approached the Stalin idea with what I gradually learned was his usual manner which was both brilliant and erudite but also self deprecating and playful, incredibly warm and generous – all delivered in a beautiful velvety voice with that Mitteleuropean accent. Those slightly rolling-rrr always reminded you that behind his cricket-loving English glamour was a cerebral Bohemian intellect in exile who treasured the English language and a very unEnglish genius for the light, almost careless deployment of serious ideas in a way no English writer ever would. That was part of his brilliance. But he also talked in a flow of sublime epigrams. He had been famous since the sixties but was utterly unspoiled. Of course we immediately plunged into his special land of Travesties discussing the vision of Stalin in Vienna with Hitler, Freud, Trotsky and he emphasized Emperor Franz Josef – how Stoppardian ( yes and who got their own adjective except Shakespeare Shaw Pinter Rabelais – not bad company!) Needless to say, that film never happened but imagine Stalin written by Stoppard. From then on we sometimes met - once on a long trip between Delhi and Galle in Sri Lanka when faced with chaotic airports and endless traffic he was astonishingly modest travelling with a tiny leather satchel and just enjoying talking about books & freedom. Freedom of ideas and words and people that he defined ruggedly within his elegant vernacular but with the east european understanding of someone who grew up amidst destroyed cities liquidated peoples and world wars and understood what was worth fighting for and hard - naturally with a disdain for the foolish but vicious witchhunts of fashionable ideologies ; the last time I saw him he was discussing Belarus’s dictatorship. He knew the costs and joys of living: ‘The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.’ When he married my friend the lovely Sabrina Guinness i saw him more. To her and his family I send love and condolences. Sometimes his philosophies appeared in his plays: “Life is a gamble, at terrible odds. If it were a bet you wouldn’t take it” and yet: “We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.” We have lost our greatest playwright but the plays are very much immortal. (ps this is reposted hopefully with less typos)

#StellaCreasyMP thinks #marriage should not be supported through the tax system. Despite the clear evidence it remains the most stable context in which to bring up children, with the best longterm outcomes.

@bbctms ‘Practise’ (state Grammar education). It is the ability to sustain skill and concentration over long periods that makes a test performer effective. So practise by all means, but not too much in the wrong context.

England have scheduled extra training sessions before the second Ashes Test in Brisbane. Having originally planned three days of nets and practice, Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have outlined five days of build-up to the day-night Test at the Gabba. 💪 #Ashes #BBCCricket

@Jennife94501468 @ClarksonsFarm1 #Britishfarmers being handcuffed (why on earth is that necessary?) for possibly causing inconvenience- whereas pro-Palestinian protesters were largely left to continue. Appalling

🚨Breaking news!🚨 Some farmers are being arrested during their peaceful protest at Westminster ahead of today’s budget announcement. This is utterly disgraceful!!🤬

Sorting CDs came across a recording I made in 1974 of Arthur Chaloner born 1884. A deeply spiritual man reaching back in time to his youth and his Christian conversion. How shallow we often are today - as a 14 year old he showed more spiritual discipline than most now achieve