Culture of bad service
Before I took a wrong turn and stumbled into journalism, I worked for some years in the hotel trade as...
Gunther Simmermacher
Pope Benedict, style guru for the noughties
Pope Benedict’s sartorial stylings have made news recently, in lifestyle magazines and in the Vatican’s newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. Last year Esquire...
The writer’s great fear of the blank mind and page
Every writer lives in fear. It’s a dread that would make dealing with the taxman followed by an unanaesthetised root...
The soundtrack of silence
In 1984 a German filmmaker asked the Carthusian grand prior whether he might film the contemplative monks of the order’s...
The Admiral’s Wife – Fr Kevin Reynolds
The Admiral’s Wife and Other Stories: Reflections and Reminiscences, by Fr Kevin Reynolds. Self-published. 2007. 87pp. Reviewed by Gunther Simmermacher...
Mary Magdalen – The essential history
MARY MAGDALEN: The Essential History, by Susan Haskins. Random House, Houghton. 2006. 518pp. Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher
Year-end Review 2006
JANUARY 2006 The Vatican Congregation for Evangelisation reveals that 27 Catholic missionaries were killed in 2005. In his first encyclical,...
Rabble-rouse for Peace
RABBLE-ROUSER FOR PEACE: The Authorised Biography of Desmond Tutu, by John Allen. Random House, Johannesburg. 2006. 481pp. Reviewed by Gunther...
