Issue 05-11-2021

Featured story

Mind your language: Helen Johnson’s Thought for the Week

FREE 4 Nov 2021 | by Helen Johnson

Coincidences happen. Usually they are acknowledged and promptly forgotten. But sometimes, something else seems to be going on. That’s what happened for me when I saw Carol Williams’ recent letter (15 October). She was writing about the importance of everyday language: the words we use and the ones that are...

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Top stories

Champion of adaptation and resilience? Interview with Anne-Marie Trevelyan by Rosemary Hartill

4 Nov 2021 | by Rosemary Hartill

‘We have to move at pace but we must ensure that our systems don’t fall over, because that doesn’t benefit anybody.’

Boris Johnson said this week that ‘Green is good; green is right; green works’. How crucial are the next ten years in ending our addiction to fossil fuels and adapting to the devastating effects of climate change? We refer to the years through to 2030 as the decisive decade because unless...

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Polar Bear arrives for COP26

FREE 4 Nov 2021 | by Rebecca Hardy

'We must learn to talk together and build community.' | Photo: Photo courtesy of Terry Winterton

Clarion the Polar Bear, the giant sculpture created by Quaker artist Bamber Hawes, arrived in Glasgow this week, just in time for COP26. The giant bear arrived after Quaker assistance helped him scale the highest part of his 306-mile trek.

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A design for life: Eleanor Nesbitt on architect Thomas Rickman

4 Nov 2021 | by Eleanor Nesbitt

Contemporary portrait of Thomas Rickman by Charles Barber.

As a Coventry Quaker I’m excited by the reopening of Drapers’ Hall. It was built by Quaker architect Thomas Rickman and his partner Henry Hutchinson. It opened in 1832. The repurposing of the hall is one of seven projects celebrating Charles Windsor’s seventieth birthday.

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Review: The Shorter Proust

4 Nov 2021 | by Peter Lawrence

'The text flows beautifully and there is no sense of jumping from excerpt to excerpt.' | Photo: Book cover detail from The Shorter Proust

Some years ago I decided that, if I wished to consider myself well read, I should read Remembrance of Things Past in its entirety, all 3,300 pages of it. I dutifully set myself a daily reading schedule with the aim of getting through the entire behemoth within the year.

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Noah

4 Nov 2021 | by Roger Iredale

It is a time for bitumen. A chill wind scours the flanks of Ararat, the rain is needles on our skins, injecting pins of bitter steel. Bitumen comes sluglike, black, oozy; seals the keel with bonds of tightness holding hope below the storm.

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Friends gather for COP26

FREE 4 Nov 2021 | by Rebecca Hardy

Quakers joined the crowds in Glasgow this week to stand witness at the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). While over 100 world leaders gathered at the Scottish Event Campus on 31 October, Friends travelled from around the globe to support the summit after months of preparation and solidarity....

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Join Global Day of Action, urges BYM

4 Nov 2021 | by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has urged Friends to join the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice on 6 November to push for ‘just solutions to the climate crisis’.

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Quakers reject ‘terrorist’ branding of six Palestinian groups

4 Nov 2021 | by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined other humanitarian and faith organisations in condemning the Israeli government’s decision to declare six Palestinian civil society groups as ‘terrorist organisations’.

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Cumberland Meeting refused online banking

4 Nov 2021 | by Rebecca Hardy

Cumberland Area Meeting has been forced to change banks after its regular building society refused to provide it with online banking facilities.

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Letters - 5 November 2021

4 Nov 2021 | by The Friend

Antisemitism Take heed dear Friends… I hesitate to join the controversy over antisemitism and the plight of the Palestinians which has carried on over the past few months in the Friend. I hope that I do so in a suitable spirit of humility, as if it were ministry in a...

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