by John M. Joyce Ring-a-ring o' roses, A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo! We all fall down.1 Each to their own, each to their own, but must I and my mate cower behind our double glazing? Should we gaze out fearfully at the empty lane with its haphazard trimming of tardy snowdrops ...Read More...

by John M. Joyce Toby Young The motto is in Latin and it means ‘Listen to the other side’. The U.K. suffers just as much as anywhere else from self-righteous prigs who go out of their way to impose censorship on opinions that they personally find distasteful for whatever spurious reason they ...Read More...

by John M. Joyce Recently I read an article about the ACLU at this site . The main point that I took from the article was that apart from the fact that free speech is an absolute, a position the ACLU doesn’t support any more, it seems that the most important question in free speech cases is: ...Read More...

  One of the accusations levelled against Milo Yiannopoulos by his Australian leftist detractors is that he abuses free speech. The idea that there is such a thing as the “abuse of free speech” is part of the leftist metanarrative. Obviously there is no such thing. The phrase is a nonsense. It’s ...Read More...

  Here at NER the quizzes we set are deliberately designed to take you on journeys along the less travelled byways of general knowledge. I know that not a few of you do some research and attempt one or two questions because you often email me and tell me about the joys of encountering odd snippets ...Read More...

  Happy New Year to all. Having had you puzzle over deaths on Boxing Day I thought that I should end this Prize Quiz with half a dozen questions about new beginnings. The new I’ve chosen is the start of new lives in the relationship of marriage. All the marriages in the following six questions ...Read More...

  If you missed them you can find Part One by clicking this link , Part Two by clicking this link , Part Three by clicking this link and Part Four by clicking this link . Well, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas Day. As you consume the last of the festive fare and resolve that next year you’re ...Read More...

  If you missed them you can find Part One by clicking this link and Part Two by clicking this link and Part Three by clicking this link . It’s Christmas Day so there’s only two easy little questions for you to ponder as you digest your excellent lunch: 1) Why is Santa always represented as ...Read More...

  If you missed them you can find Part One by clicking this link and Part Two by clicking this link. It’s Christmas Eve and traditionally carols are sung. We’ve all sung them, or heard them, since we were little children, but how well do you actually know your carols? Let’s see how many of the ...Read More...

  If you missed it, you can find Part One of the Prize Christmas Quiz here.   Jesus Christ is our spiritual king, the emperor of our souls, and of course there is the story of the three Kings—the three wise men—that is traditionally a part of Christmas (see the Gospel of Matthew Ch. 2 for ...Read More...

  After you're done here,  be sure to enter Part 2.   Obviously, we’re about to celebrate the birth of Our Saviour Jesus Christ. We know where he was born —in an inn’s stable in Bethlehem—but do you know the answers to the following questions regarding the births of famous people? 1) ...Read More...

You’ll all remember the anti-free speech story from a week or so ago. The one about the nasty, horrible, ill-mannered louts and sluttish females all of whom support President Trump and the Free Tommy Robinson campaign who surrounded and abused a London bus driver simply because she was a Mohammedan ...Read More...

  Now and again a cartoonist hits the nail on the head and draws something that touches on many levels of meaning.   This one from Yaakov Kirschen, whom you can find at http://drybones.com/, is absolutely excellent.   You will recall that a brave Iranian woman protested against the sexist, ...Read More...

  I set forty-two questions for you to ponder over. I chose to set forty-two questions so that I could remind you of an interesting Christmas fact about the number forty-two: to wit, there are forty-two generations given in the Gospel of Matthew's version of the genealogy of Jesus. That is to say, ...Read More...

  ...before I give you the answers here’s a final question. A sort of Twelfth Night bonus question, as it were. Q.  Illuminatingly, who did what with a tree at Christmas in New York City in AD1882? I’ll post all the answers in a few hours time. All together now: ‘Enjoy’.     ...Read More...