The episode of Rev in which Tom Hollander fails to conjure a spiritual feeling in his drunken congregation is the most poignant and funniest Christmas TV specials. Hollander never gave up on its potential for delivering simple human kindness, even in eviscerating the pieties and hypocrisies of the Church of England.
The census figures show that 59.3% of the UK population still think of themselves as Christian a decade ago. The latest census figures show that the number has gone down to over half of the country. The percentage of people who profess no religion has gone up. The only time I attend a church service these days, beyond weddings and funerals, is for an annual nine lessons and carols. I was fascinated by how much my memory covered the more obscure of those lyrics. I sang, "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/Hail the incarnate deity" with all the other once-a-year attenders. I felt a flash of nostalgia for those childhood certainties because of Charles Wesley's gift for rhyming propaganda.
Those in danger.
The migrants arrive at the Port of Dover on a border force vessel. Henry Nicholls is pictured.
I was in Dunkirk a couple of weeks ago, talking to people who were desperate to get to the beaches in the dark and try to get across the Channel. I walked along those beaches in the cold and sleet. It seemed barely comprehensible that anyone's life could be so bleak that climbing into an overcrowded rubber dinghy was the best hope for the future. The EU border force has stepped up its efforts to prevent the crossing after 27 people drowned at the beginning of the month. Some dinghies got across the Channel to the UK despite the plane preventing a couple of launches. Safe routes for asylum seekers are the best way to disrupt the traffickers and prevent more deaths this winter.
Let the snow fall.
There are snows. Jutta Kuss is a photographer.
Some political circles have a bad reputation for scuplches. The professor of physics at the California Institute of Technology is trying to restore their former magic. The science of ice crystals has been changed over the course of 20 years. The grand unified theory of snowflakes will be published this week in time for Christmas. There are two different ways in which ice crystals are created, one of which is the complex structure of their surfaces. He has shown that under lab conditions at least two snowflakes can be exactly alike, which is a lie that every child knows.
Tim Adams writes for the Observer.
