1 day ago
It was only a couple of weeks ago when the hapless Tory MP William Wragg was exposed for exposing himself on Grindr and then being blackmailed that I made reference to Uncle Chris, the late Christopher Booker HERE. The image from Private Eye of the Court of SuperMac dressed as if for the fall of Rome, which hangs in the downstairs loo at The Old Rectory, is again in my mind. It is as if Tory MP’s get an automatic account with the gay dating app Grindr when they are elected. Again, another Private Eye joke springs to mind.
502 days ago
The British mainstream media, led by the appalling Daily Mail has, from the start of the war in Ukraine bigged up Russian Casualties, bathing in the blood of every dead Russian. Day after day there are videos straight from Kiev showing Ukrainian snipers getting kills at record distances, drones blowing up Russian tanks or some other heroic act meaning more Russian mothers will be mourning their sons this Christmas. But there is a big omission.
1222 days ago
Other than for my father’s funeral, I have not been to church since the start of the ludicrous lockdowns in March. For a while our Church here in the last village in Wales was closed but in September it sort of re-opened, though this family did not go.
1269 days ago
I have been sent a stern email by the Vicar in Shipston about tomorrow’s funeral for my father. She knows my views and position but reminds me that the Church is only following the law in requiring us all to muzzle up and not sing. Naturally I have replied but the attachment below, the Church’s guidance on Covid prevention, strikes me as a monstrous deception which, in time, it will be forced to recognise and will come to regret.
1366 days ago
The CofE’s attempts to be “relevant” reminds one of that aged relative at a family party trying to get down with the kids by talking about what sort of rock ‘n’ roll they like. “Groovy” he says, without any sense of irony, and we all cringe with embarrassment. Here, in our village, other than the vicar’s daughter, the three youngest folks in this Church of Wales congregation are myself (52), the Mrs (er… a bit younger), and our son Joshua (3). I fear the next youngest is well past 60, if not 70. The Church desperately wants younger folks to attend.
1940 days ago
Our normal lefty vicar Ian was at another Parish on Christmas Eve telling another flock about the poor Palestinians and the nasty Israelis, as we celebrated the birth of an Israeli. And thus at St Cuthbert’s we had a stand in vicar, an old man with a white beard who is officially retired and looked rather learned. And so to the sermon, witnessed by a bigger crowd than I can remember in years gone by.
1950 days ago
I have never seen our local church in this unfashionable bit of Bristol look this way. That is to say full. But it was packed with more than a hundred souls last night for carols by candlelight. It was all rather touching. As I belted out some of the old favourites in my own tone deaf way and as Joshua ran around misbehaving it felt like Christmas had actually begun. The story almost came to life. I did feel a sort of bond with my fellow worshippers – ordinary folk, shepherds not kings.
2785 days ago
I used to have a girlfriend from India who arrived in this country convinced that the entire British establishment and anyone who went to a public school (with the exception of myself, naturally) were closet homoseexuals. If she is reading the tabloid press today she will no doubt be concluding that she was right all along.
First there is the Bishop of Grantham
3010 days ago
And you wonder why no-one takes the Church of England seriously any more? You despair at the sad decline of Western civilization? Prepare for just another sad footnote in that decline.
Writing in The Church Times, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, suggests vicars growing beards could help the Church of England reach out to parishioners from Asia where wearing a beard could mark a man out as holy. He flagged up two priests in East London - the Rev. Adam Atkinson, Vicar of St Peter's church in Bethnal Green, and Rev. Cris Rogers of All Hallows Bow - who have grown bushy beards.
Chartres is himself a bearded fellow and if you did not think this man was already crackers he goes on to describe David Beckham
