The New Druidic Training College Takes Shape......

....or it does on paper, at any event. It's a response to the need to come up with so many more druids to satisfy all needs.

Currently we're running at a druid each for:

• People who only want male druids
• People who only want female druids
• People who only want male druids who've been druided (technical term there) by a male archdruid
• People who want druids who are certifiably Martian
• People who only want female druids who've been druided by male archdruids (and vice versa)
• People who only want druids who are married to other druids
• People who want druids who believe they're totally in control due to their chromosomes
• People who only want druids who finish every sermon with "but what do I know?"
• People who want gay druids who keep quiet about it
• People who want druids who aren't gay but pretend to be
• One druid to rule them all, one druid to bind them.

Naturally, I just reckon the last one is all that's needed. But everyone else is insistent that they have to have their own particular focus of unity. So I've given up, and agreed to go for it. But that's a lot of training requirements. So we've got the architect to knock up some sketches for our proposed new institution, St Stylites'. We've chosen St Simon as our patron because, as he spent all his time sitting on a column, he clearly never sat on the fence. Except in a very real sense.

As you pull up the Fast Track towards St Stylites', you will see the Ivory Tower reaching up to the heavens. Here our student druids will dream great dreams about how they will revolutionise the world of evangelism, by strict adherence to a bunch of anecdotes from Holy Trinity.

It's a carbon-neutral institution, of course. You have to park your objections - sorry, car - outside the grounds. As you walk down the Primrose Path into the college, you will have to be careful - every afternoon, many of the trainees will be engaged in the college sport of kicking cans down the road.

Artist's Impression of the New Druidic Training College

Once within the grounds, you will be able to hear the peaceful sounds of the Fountain of Youth, plashing into the blue waters of the Talent Pool. If you're lucky, over the sounds of the bees working the white flowers in the Harvest Field, you may be able to hear the sound of Structured Conversations going on in the Delaying Chamber. Sorry, Debating Chamber.

The Leadership sessions will take place in the Green Room. We've come up with a special design for the furniture in the Green Room whereby, whichever chair you sit in, it kind of sinks in just after you chose it and you wish you'd not been quite so keen to choose that chair after all. We got them from the Ikea in Denbigh - lovely new range called Bötcht.

Still, the whole of St Stylites' will focus around the Chapel. In all the hurly-burly of training, leading, facilitating, energising, focussing, heading, administering and managing, it is good for everybody to remember every now and then why they're there.

We won't bother fitting any doors.