Burton Forgives

There are some things in life of which we can be certain. Which is of great comfort to an accountant like myself, who gets very upset when facing sudden and unexpected shocks. For example - 70 times 7 is, so my adding machine assures me, 490. And I am generally good at numbers and operating my adding machine, whatever the enquiry into Polly Peck said about my auditing skills. So I have confidence in my sum.

Gentle readers, 490 is a lot of times to forgive someone. Who could one imagine of such inordinate evilness that they might exceed even that buffer-zone of forgiveness? Nasty Nick off Eastenders, to be sure - but then he is safely ensconced on the Panto merry-go-round and need never ask "Ma" to forgive him again if he doesn't want to.

Taking things literally, as I am wont to do, I created myself a "forgiveness book". Everybody who ever upsets me, I put a mark against them in the book. And then when I feel I can truly forgive them I cross it out. If I ever get to 490 I will have to stop forgiving them, and then they had better watch out.

Young Keith, however, is the sort of person that likes to raise doubts in the minds of folk of weaker faith. For example, the Archdruid - who unlike me does not have a forgiveness book - has never forgiven him for that episode when he announced the McDonald's he was eating contained meat that had been sacrificed to idols - although it turned out it hadn't, as far as we could tell. But he put some doubt in my mind.

"Burton," he told me, "of course, there's a better-attested reading of 77 times - not 70 times 7."

Well of course, I was distraught. Running a quick check on my Forgiveness Access Database (I like to have a back-up, in case I lose the book) I discovered that no fewer than three people had been forgiven more than 77 times but less than 70 times 7 - and one of them was the Archdruid. What could I do? Clearly I had broken the Letter of the Law - and, as the Good Book tells us, "The Letter Killeth". What awful punishment might the Letter deal out to me for being too forgiving?

Thankfully the Archdruid came to the rescue. She assured me, based on her own reading of the variant manuscripts, that it should be 70 x 7. And told me not to be so stupid in future. I'm really thankful to the Archdruid. I'll miss her when I've got to forgive her for the 491st time. Still, if I stay out of her way, that may not happen till next month at the earliest.