Above all else

Yesterday was a sad day.  I write this now because I think it is important to speak up, and to speak up clearly and strongly before it's too late.  It's already starting to be the case for us in our time, and for my children, or my children's children... well, it seems it will be even harder. Many will have read that the US Supreme Court has decided, by a 5 to 4 majority, to legalise same-sex marriage across the United States (amid the press' general coverage of this matter as if all the world celebrated, and as if this was clearly the right decision, you should read some succinct highlights of the other four judges, including the Chief Justice, who disagreed with the decision here ). What the US Supreme Court has done is not just legalise same-sex marriage.  They are fundamentally re-defining what marriage means.  They are saying that the very definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, which has been in place for millenia, has been unconstitutional...

So after years of watching his heroics inspire and rescue Liverpool countless times, the inimitable Steven Gerrard is finally riding off into the sunset.  Oddly, for someone who probably earns more in a month (or a week!) than what 99% of us will earn in a year, the abiding feeling is one of... almost pity. Gerrard's incandescent talent lit up the Liverpool team for years, but he never really came close to winning the league, at least until last season, when his own slip so unjustly denied him the chance to lift that trophy.  His final season this year was even more tragic.  Losing his place in the first eleven.  Coming on as a substitute against the auld enemy Manchester United and getting sent off within seconds.  Losing 3-1 at Anfield to Crystal Palace, in his final game at home, in front of his city's fans.  Then the ignominy of losing 6-1 (!) in his final game for the club.  Heck, after that I even went to play as Steven Gerrard on the Xbox, a...