You find Christmas and its spirit and meaning in the strangest of places. I was in a shopping mall one day last week. At first blush it is about as far away from the manger in Bethlehem as you can get. But even in a mall, that ultimate shrine

We all have a favourite Christmas song. Mine has always been Silent Night. My second favourite, though, isn’t Adeste Fideles or Little Town of Bethlehem. It certainly isn’t The Little Drummer Boy or even Royal David’s City. It is instead the dark and mournful Fairytale of New York. It

A break from Christmas shopping now to tell you of a much-used little expression that has made its way deeply into our culture. I was watching Jamie Oliver doing a Christmas cooking thing last night on the television and I see he is the latest to pick up on

It will not be easy to accept for a lot of people but “virtual care” is the way of the future in Newfoundland and places that are like it.

What “like it” means is a place where there is a small population spread over a vast

It is the beginning of that long stretch to Christmas. For the box stores it starts the day after Halloween. There is some outrage over that, but, personally, I don’t mind it at all because I love Christmas so much. To tell you the truth the Christmas lights that

A lesson we learned in school is a line from a poem by Wilfred Owen. It was published in 1921. In Latin it reads “Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori”. It is actually a quote from the Roman poet Horace, and it translates: It is sweet and proper to

This week we watched the announcement that Scotiabank was reducing the number of branches in our province. Scotiabank has a very long history here and has given notice it is closing no less than eight branch banks in Newfoundland. It is part of an overall downsizing across Canada. Scotiabank

This is a story of the sea. Looking back now after more than half a century there is an aspect to it all that is surreal, but it happened. At the age of 15, because of circumstances, I found myself at two in the morning at the wheel of

My friend and I were coming down the front steps of Clovelly Golf Club about five or six years ago. We had played a round of golf and then stopped at the restaurant for what was a great meal. I had the pan fried cod. We had a glass

I just returned from Ontario this week. I haven’t been there in a while. It is a beautiful time of year along the canals that run out from Ottawa. I was reminded of my last visit there a few years ago and I present humbly to you what I