AN OUTSIDE VIEW

Following the row over the award of the Thameslink rolling stock contract to Siemens, the Secretary of State for Transport has put the decision about rolling stock for Crossrail on hold. This project needs a thorough rethink, especially at the western end of the route. It should not run over the GW main line beyond Heathrow Junction. One possible option would be to run the trains onto the Hammersmith branch of the Metropolitan, thereby releasing capacity on the busiest stretch of the Circle Line. The whole service could then form part of the London Overground system. That answers the fleet procurement question, as a further build of the Bombardier class 378 would do the job nicely.

Here is Gaddafi leaving his bunker in Tripoli. Will he ever be found? He has 3,630,000 sq miles of the Sahara to hide in.

"What does it matter so long as you love the Lord?" A friend of mine says this when I say that I need to go to the Catholic church on Sunday. The other options are to sit in the woods and pray, or go to the local Protestant church, (above), a little architectural gem. This is the view that all religions are as good as each other so it does not really matter what religion one follows. As a Catholic my friend ought to know better. Jesus Christ is the Lord. Jesus founded the church and ordered its sacraments. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It is as simple as that. Of course we should love the Lord. And if we love him we will do as he says, and that includes keeping the rules of the church: going to Mass every Sunday and on Holy Days of Obligation, receiving Communion at least once a year, confessing one's sins at least once a year between Lent and Trinit...

Christians in Western Europe and the US sometimes become members of an Orthodox church - that is, a church not under the jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome. Often, they have previously been Catholics or members of a Protestant church. It is not a decision they will have made lightly and there are many reasons for their choice. They may not like the modern liturgy of the Catholic church, and might feel that the more conservative and antique Orthodox liturgy is more authentic; they may find some of the rules too harsh; they may disapprove of the amount of power that the Pope has; or their motivation may be a combination of all of the above. Having decided to do this, the first question that arises is which Orthodox church to join. The Russian? Not if one has no connection whatsoever with Russia. The Greek? On the face of things, Greece is less specifically national, but in practice it is a church mostly for immigrants from Greek-speaking countries, in Britain, from Cyprus....

I came across a piece recently discussing a problem whose causes were attributed to "ruthless Capitalism". What other kind is there? But then, what is Capitalism anyway? Capital is the fisherman's boat and tackle, the workman's tools. That is not ruthless. The term Capitalism is bandied around freely, but what precisely is Capitalism as a system of economic organisation? Almost nobody has ever taken the trouble to dissect it and expose its constituent parts. Marx used the term sloppily, promoting confusion and contributing to 100 million deaths in the last century. To judge from its fruits, it cannot reasonably be claimed that Capitalism is untainted. If the concept is dissected, its intrinsically evil components are readily discernable. Any notion of "caring Capitalism" is an oxymoron. The primary evil of Capitalism is the private appropriation of the goods provided by nature, in particular, the surface of the earth, and following on from that as a co...

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo: mulier amicta sole, et luna sub pedibus ejus, et in capite ejus corona stellarum duodecim.

BMV Dormition icon-04 , a photo by Defensio Fidei on Flickr.