Nicholas Graham

Still can’t find the perfect present for the #historicalfiction lover in your life? Solomon Eliades solves the problem in The Judas Case – amazon.co.uk/Judas-Case-Nic… Murder & betrayal in 1st Century Jerusalem. @HistoriaHWA @BookGuild

@NJ_Timothy You're fostering division and promoting hatred via invented victim-hood and passive aggressive posturing. Absolutely unfit for public office.

The wilful misunderstanding in this post says everything about the people behind the “Islamophobia” definition. The point is not that Sikhs have danced on Trafalgar Square. Or that the Passion Play has been hosted there. Neither is the point that Muslims gathered on Trafalgar Square. The point is that mass ritual prayer in public - in this case next to a church - is an act of domination. So is the public call of the Adhan, which explicitly denies other religions including Christianity. That is the difference. And yet neither Dominic - nor the Labour MPs who were instructed by No10 to attack me last night - will engage with the substance. Instead he claims he knows my personal views when we haven’t talked, and incorrectly describes me as a spokesman for the Free Speech Union. People like Dominic can’t work out why the ideological world they built is falling apart. They never pause to wonder if perhaps they might have got things very badly wrong.

@kisstheblade_ Yes - just brilliantly clever.

@ThatNickGraham I liked it a lot. Creation is also a real treat.

Never read much Gore Vidal, just a handful of novels and now a collection of essays, and I'm going to say this: the essays are very good, truly fantastic writer, but just from his tone he seems absolutely insufferable. Stink lines of bitchiness visibly rising from the page.

@Nick_Wellings The printer is HP's way of selling you lots of ink. Focus on the right consumables.

How much should a new printer cost, please? I'm looking and see ones for £40 by HP with no ink. That seems cheap to me? I'm literally clueless...never bought one!

@Helen_Fields @goodreads Perhaps 'unfinished'? I am still reading Witkiewicz's magisterial 'Insatiabity' in spite of not having opened my copy for over 30 years. Nor can I yet imagine the circumstances in which I will return to it.

What do you guys think of this? I know I have a specific viewpoint here but I think a DNF shelf is a grim idea. Not every book works for every reader. If this goes ahead I’ll have to think about taking down my ⁦@goodreads⁩ account.

@BishopDewar Vile, disingenuous hate-filled nonsense. Shame on you.

As a Bishop, I cannot stay silent. I have today drafted and sent an open letter to His Majesty King Charles III, the text of which reads as follows: To: His Majesty, Charles III, King of the United Kingdom and the Realms, Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Bearer of the ancient title Defender of the Faith. Your Majesty, I write to you neither as a politician nor as a commentator, but as one of your loyal subjects who, as a bishop of Christ’s Church, cannot remain silent while the Christian foundations of this kingdom are steadily dismantled. Sir, there are moments in the life of a nation when silence becomes a form of betrayal. If I refused to speak to Your Majesty now, this would be such a moment. For more than a thousand years the Crown of this realm has stood in solemn covenant with the Christian faith. The laws of this land were shaped by it. The liberties of our people were nurtured by it. The conscience of our civilisation was formed by it. From the abbeys of medieval England to the parish churches of our villages, from the preaching of the Reformers to the missionary zeal that carried the Gospel to the ends of the earth, the Christian faith has not merely influenced Britain — it has defined her. Yet today that inheritance is being quietly but deliberately eroded. Across the institutions of this nation there is a growing hostility toward the faith that built them. Christian belief is mocked in the public square. Christian morality is dismissed as intolerance. Christian institutions are pressured to surrender doctrine in order to conform to the ideology of the age. Within the very Church that bears the name of England, voices have arisen that appear more eager to mirror the spirit of the age than to proclaim the eternal truth of the Gospel. Meanwhile, beyond the walls of our churches, powerful political movements openly speak of removing Christianity from its historic place within the life of this nation. What would once have been whispered is now proclaimed openly: that Britain must become a post-Christian state. It is in this context that I write to you, Your Majesty. For the British Crown does not stand apart from this crisis. The Sovereign of this realm bears a title that is not merely historic but sacred in its origin and meaning: Defender of the Faith. Those words are not decorative. They are a charge. They speak of a monarch whose duty is not merely to preside over the ceremonies of the Church, but to stand as a guardian of the Christian inheritance of the nation. Yet many among your subjects now ask, with increasing anxiety: “Who will defend that inheritance today?” They see a nation drifting from its foundations. And they ask whether the Crown will remain silent while that inheritance is dismantled. Your Majesty, may I be so bold as to observe that your coronation oath was not a poetic formality. It was a solemn vow made before Almighty God to maintain and preserve the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law. Those words bind the conscience of the sovereign. They remind the Crown that its authority is not merely constitutional but moral. The monarch is not merely a symbol of national continuity, but a custodian of the spiritual inheritance that shaped this realm. History records moments when kings and emperors were confronted by the Church and reminded that their authority was accountable before God. In the fourth century Ambrose of Milan stood before the Emperor Theodosius I and reminded him that even the ruler of an empire must bow before the moral law of Christ. That tradition of prophetic witness has never disappeared. Nor should it. For when rulers forget the foundations upon which their authority rests, the Church must speak — not with hostility, but with holy clarity. And so, I write to say this, Your Majesty: The Christian character of this nation is under profound and accelerating assault. If the Crown does not stand visibly and courageously in defence of that inheritance, history will record that the guardians of Britain’s institutions watched in silence as the foundations were removed. The issue before us is not nostalgia. It is civilisation. Remove Christianity from the story of Britain and you do not create a neutral society — you create a moral vacuum. And history teaches us that moral vacuums are never left empty for long. Your Majesty now stands at a crossroads that few monarchs in modern history have faced. For the erosion of Britain’s Christian inheritance will not ultimately be judged by speeches made in Parliament or debates in the press. It will be judged by whether those entrusted with the guardianship of our ancient institutions chose to defend them — or merely preside over their quiet surrender. You may preside over the quiet dissolution of Britain’s Christian identity. Or you may rise to the ancient responsibility entrusted to the Crown and speak with clarity about the faith that built this kingdom. The first path requires little courage. The second will require a great deal. But it is the path that history honours. Your Majesty’s subjects are not asking for religious coercion. They are asking for leadership. They are asking that the sovereign who bears the title Defender of the Faith remember what that title means. They are asking that the Crown hear the growing cry of anguish from Christians across this land who feel that the spiritual inheritance of their nation is being surrendered without resistance. And they are asking whether the Crown will stand with them. For the faith that shaped Britain is not merely a cultural ornament. It is the wellspring from which our laws, our liberties, and our moral imagination have flowed. If it is cast aside, the nation will discover — too late — that it has severed itself from the very roots that sustained it. Your Majesty, to many the Crown is a symbol of authority. But before God it is also a symbol of stewardship. And stewardship carries with it the duty to defend what has been entrusted. May Almighty God grant Your Majesty the wisdom to discern this hour, and the courage to fulfil the sacred duty entrusted to the Crown. Yours faithfully, Bishop Ceirion H. Dewar FSHC Missionary Bishop Diocese of Providence Confessing Anglican Church @PhilHs10 @RevBrettMurphy @revwickland @BishopRobert1 @GBNews @TalkTV @danwootton @Jacob_Rees_Mogg @LozzaFox @BackBrexitBen @RupertLowe10 @KemiBadenoch @JohnCleese

Deeply saddened by this news. If anyone out there is not already familiar with his work then 'A New Way To Say Goodnight' is a great place to start - a tiny nugget of brilliance that never ceases to surprise.

@tonythorne007 @tufnelljimmy That's mint.

@ThatNickGraham @tufnelljimmy But he knows his onions

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photo of Rowan Williams in his younger years. It’s as though he emerged fully formed as a sage.

@AmericanGwyn Genuinely baffled by the V / Pynchon nomination. Actually very fine and certainly better than some of his more recent (& very good) work.

Worst Books By Our Greatest Writers: 1. The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy 2. Requiem for a Nun, William Faulkner 3. Across the River and into the Trees, Ernest Hemingway 4. V., Thomas Pynchon 5. Pierre, Herman Melville 6. Dream of Fair to Middling Women, Samuel Beckett

Maryport beach - where sandstone is washed into patterns of beauty and wonder.

@PJScribbansAuth That is pretty much my standard procedure...

What’s the strangest place you’ve solved a story problem? For me: halfway up a wet hillside in Cumbria.

@dieworkwear @CardoneMD Fair enough. My father - who saw Cab Calloway at the Cotton Club c 1930 - on watching Byrne in Stop Making Sense in the 1980s immediately made the connection - in favour of Calloway's suit.

a defining part of the zoot suit is the length, which can be judged both by the length and the distance from the bottom most button to the jacket's hem. bryne's length is truncated given its width, giving it a square silhouette. the zoot suit has a lot more length & distance between the bottom most button and the hem, giving it an elongating overcoat proportion.

Surprised the reactions to this are "Talking Heads" and "early 2000 NBA draft." The reference is zoot suits, which were oversized suits worn by young Black, Mexican, and Asian Americans in the 1930s and 40s, often part of the jazz scene. Think: Cab Calloway and Malcolm X.

@Nick_Wellings @wyatt_browdy Was just about to suggest this . . .

@wyatt_browdy Life: A User's Manual

What are the best "everything novels"? Novels that are seemingly about everything at once

@ClarksonsFarm1 Disgusting incitement to violence. You need to remove this & apologise.

@KT_Carlisle Like he said - April is the cruellest month.

You know how people get seasonal affective disorder during the fall/winter? Mine comes during the spring/summer. Literally hate this time of year. I've not felt like myself since the time change on Sunday. 😭

@ElvisCostello Good grief. Absolutely extraordinary version. Can't wait for Heaton Park this summer.

Classic Clips: Elvis Costello “Cowgirl in the Sand” Queen Elizabeth Theater, Vancouver, 2010 americana-uk.com/classic-clips-…

@Nigel_Farage Prices that are going up because of the criminal war of aggression started by your dementia-addled chum in Washington that YOU support.

Labour and the Tories have hammered motorists for far too long. Reform is cutting prices at the pump today to show drivers what it will be like under a government I lead.

Riggindale. (If you know, you know).

@Devon_OnEarth Old joke about Whitehall recruitment & promotion ensuring desks with occupants' name-plates give sections identities: Lamb Currie Rice etc

You're telling me the British Defence Attache to a Desert country is a guy called "Captain Sandy Sandilands"