The Bremen Bod Blog

  I belong to a lost tribe; Working class Scottish Catholic Socialists who hugely admire our Queen and don’t see much contradiction between being both monarchists and socialists for reasons too numerous to go into here. Other than to say, we’ve always known that having an un-elected family as head of state offers ordinary people protection against totalitarianism and that God Save the King was sung at Peterloo by those assembled in 1819. As such, I’ve greatly enjoyed watching the recent series ‘The Crown’ which successfully manages to intertwine the story of Britain’s social history with the tale of Queen Elizabeth’s long and glorious reign.      Despite the dramatic embellishments and liberties which have been taken with the regards to the reality of historical events, The Crown still manages to convey the essence of our relationship with the Royal Family over the last 70 years and their place in our lives. For example, the (slightly inaccurate) episode concerning Michael Fagan’s atte

"Afore grind and woe, Toiled away memory, God’s beloved was I." Haiku for Henri by Ross Ahlfeld Unfortunately, I couldn’t get to Mass on Sunday; it was my own fault since I left it far too late to book a space via Eventbrite and all the parishes nearby in my diocese were all booked out. As a result I ended up ‘attending’ a live streamed Mass online from another diocese. Out of charity I won’t name the Church  but I didn’t take too  much comfort from the homily if I’m being honest.   The basic jist of the sermon was that people who pursue a career and money are “dying alone with nobody to look after them because they’d failed to preserve and cherish relationships with family ties and friendships”. I found this to be especially harsh on the vast majority of socially isolated and lonely elderly people who die alone because of our own lack of neighbourliness and because of the loveless and individualistic society which we ourselves have created. A lonely death is our sin no