Guns ‘n’ roses: the murder of Joan Root

This item also appears on Dorian Cope’s wonderful blog On This Deity. Five years ago today, 69-year-old Joan Root lay alone bleeding to death from gunshot wounds at her home on the shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya. Whodunnit? Who cut down this Kenyan-born English rose? And why? As a young woman, Joan was shy [...]

On kindness and Christianity

The not-for-profit organisation that I work for has recently changed its name. Its work for the past century and half with some of the poorest, most oppressed, most abused and most vulnerable women, in times of war, peace and political turbulence, is something I am immensely proud to be part of. To witness the change [...]

Greenham Common Peace Women ‘Embrace the Base’

This post first appeared here on Dorian Cope’s blog On This Deity The 12th December 1982 was cold. Not really the kind of day to be hanging about outside unless there is something you really have to do. But there was something that I and thousands of other women really, really had to do. In [...]

On This Deity

I have recently been following a new blog, hosted by Dorian Cope (pictured) called On This Deity. Since August Dorian has daily been commemorating what she calls ‘culture heroes’ and reminding us of world events that have in some way had a pivotal impact on culture, society, thinking, politics or science. You know, the big [...]

The terrible price of Kenyan flowers

Not so long ago, roses were expensive. Now you can get six blooms for £4 at my local Tescos. The real cost of cheap flowers was revealed to me in all its horror earlier this month when we visited Kenya’s Lake Naivasha, a large freshwater lake in the Rift Valley, formerly home to a thriving [...]

The Greatest Show on Earth

On Friday the postman brought me my copy of Richard Dawkins’ new book The Greatest Show on Ear…

Condoms, education and partial vegetarianism

According to new stats from the ONS, the UK’s population is now more than 61million. This makes me sad. …

Eating ethically

I may be a soft, southern, middle-class, educated, liberal wuss, but I care about my fellow creatures, I don’t want ‘blood on my hands’ and I want to tread as lightly as I can on the planet. So for the past year or so I’ve been trying to …

Making an issue of it

Why does everything these days have to be ‘an issue’? I hear news reporters talk about ‘terrorism issues’, I hear social commentators talk about ‘issues of poverty’, and health professionals talk about ‘mental health issues’.
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