Sunday 22 June 2014

The 4,000th Post

Archdruid: Friends, Bozos and Beaker Folk. This liturgy will be.... our 4,000th blog post!

Aliens from Toy Story  Ooh!

Archdruid: One's 4,000th post is a special number. So many things multiply into it - 4, and 1,000. And 40, and 100. 400, and 10....

All: That Base 10 work's coming along OK, then.

Archdruid: OK, let's face the music and dance....

The Beaker Quire plays "The Anniversary Waltz ." The Beaker Matrons attempt that spirally dance they saw on the Stonehenge programme last night. The Beaker Matrons realise they're not as lithe as they were.

Archdruid: Let loose the lovey doveys!

Crates are opened. A legion of lovey doveys ascend in a glittering, swirling flock.

All: Aah!

The doves are consumed by the fabled Eagles of the Pope Emeritus.

All: Oops.

Hymn: "Free bird". Somehow nobody has their heart in it now.

Archdruid: It's now time for the offering. So, this being a special occasion, I hope you'all all give special amounts. Young Keith's Tithe Enforcement Team will be passing among you with wireless payment devices and metal detectors.

Hymn: Money for Nothing

Archdruid: Now, a special message from a longtime friend of this blog. Sadly he can't be with us today, but he left us a video message. However, since the 1970s Revival the other week, we no longer have a data projector or PA system. So this is a picture of Richard Dawkins I've drawn onto an acetate. However, since the 1930s Revival last week, we no longer have an overhead projector.

A badly-drawn acetate of an Oxford don is passed around. Some remark on the resemblance to Tony Blair.

Archdruid: OK, bring on the penguins.

The Little Sisters of the Holy Haddock, the order of discalced penguins, process into the Moot House. However, they've not really done much since their triumph at the 3,000th Post Liturgy. They've aged badly and lost their pace. The old "False Verger" tactic no longer fools anyone. They're humiliated by a bunch of younger, hungrier Dutch penguins, and retreat from the stage.

Archdruid: Sorry, Sisters. I think it was a mistake keeping that walrus as manager.

Hymn: What do Pretty Girls Do?

Archdruid: So I'd like to thank you for all attending this 4,000th Blog Post Liturgy. But I have a bit of news. You see you thought I was just little old Archdruid Eileen, with my pebbles and tea lights and pipeweed, living in my bunker at Church End. But in fact......

Lights dim. Lamia writhe, poised between lust and death. Herne the Hunter averts his eyes. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn longs for a quiet life with badgers and rats. 

Archdruid: I am.....

Eileen's pointy hat grows longer and her body grows tall and thin, until she towers over the terrified Beaker Folk.

Aliens from Toy Story: Oooh!

Archdruid: .....Sarumana the Taupe!

All: The Taupe?

Archdruid: Yeah. By the time they finally got a two-thirds majority for women wizards, all the decent colours had gone.

All: Nice special effects, Eileen. Can we sing Lord of the Dance now?

Archdruid: No! I have established my Urukh-Hai in the cellars under the Great House, and now..... Urukh-Hai! Take them to the doily mines!

Urukh-Hai Captain: Sure thing, O great Sarumana. Oo - tea lights. We love them. Nice joss sticks. Do you know, I think we're just going to hold these pebbles and contemplate them for a while....

The Urukh-Hai launch into an unaccompanied verse of "Brother Sister let me Serve You."

THE DISMISSAL

Archdruid: OK, Hnaef. Turn on the water cannon. Let's go count the offering.


9 comments :

  1. There are no such thing as women wizards or "wizardesses" as we traddie pagans like to call them. You are creating a beige universalist pagan religion that has lost touch with its roots. Why can't you be satisfied with the opportunities that already exist for women? You could hang upside down in a cave like the Sybil of Cumae and get a legal high and kickbacks from bent spread-betters. You can become political pundits, like the Weird Sisters of Fife.You could be a warrior Valkyrie (very empowering) Frankly the whole wizardess thing is a load of old warlocks.

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  2. It is the reactionary Sideways in Slitherin movement that has popularised the expression "wizardesses", as a means of diminishing the whole "equality for women wizards" movement.

    And I would never turn down the opportunity to be a Valkyrie. if I could only find some warriors...

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    1. I have nothing personally against wizardesses - they are bright, keen, and do a good job in many ways - though I am inclined to consider them hufflepuffs rather than slitherins. They lack the ruthlessness needed to head up a successful coven. I can't see the Alderley Edge Townswitches Guild admitting one to the ranks, without there being a mass defection to the Methodists - and I doubt that their magic wands work. I bet Drayton Parslow has sound views on the matter.

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  3. Although the 4000th post is excellent it is the 3999th that is a classic.

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  4. An achievement of Biblical proportions :) well done and keep up the good work, could do with more fine beer reviews though.

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  5. As a Deputy Church Warden I could really do with a troupe of Uruk-Hai! They'd certainly make PCC meetings livelier. And probably much, much shorter.

    Congratulations on your 4,000th post!

    love, Maggie xxx

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  6. (Putting on my Eyeore costume)

    4000 is not a particularly interesting number (although not an uninteresting number, which does not exist*). Not divisible by 3 or 7 or 11 etc. Not prime, let alone a safe prime like 4007 or a balanced prime like 4013. Nor, indeed, like 4030 which is the third weird number.

    Just because some curious creature happened to crawl out of the ooze with five digits on a limb, we are condemned to consider twice five some special number.

    Bring back pounds shillings and pence. Then Britain would be Great again.

    (*proof: if there are uninteresting numbers then as there are definitely small interesting numbers, there must be a smallest uninteresting number, which thereby becomes interesting. So the smallest uninteresting number cannot exist, so all numbers are interesting.)

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  7. Dare I say "Here's to the next 4000"?

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