The All Modern Pilgrim Destination

Latest news  Burton's fenland pilgrimage has taken him to Walsingam on the Eve of the Assumption. He has been Whatsapping images of his day, mostly consisting of an chap in a biretta that Burton was quite taken with. But he now appears to be as high as a kite on Aspall cider and Rosa Mistica. Burton, that is, not the priest. I told him to avoid the Pilgrim Shop, but they lure him in with offers for cut-price icons, and then he runs amock buying incense.

Still, he's given me some ideas to upgrade the Beaker experience here ready for the next pilgrimage season. First up - why just go down some steps to get sprinkled with holy water at a well? I've set our Keith to plumbing St Bogwulf's Holy Well straight into the hot tub. Float your sins away in our sanctified jacuzzi. You can enjoy the experience of soaking in warm bubbling holy water, even in the depths of winter. If you put a shilling in the meter.

And we've been able to put our "Let it Be Machine" into action straight away. If you visit our AI BVM statue, you can hear Mother Mary speaking words of wisdom just like St Paul McCartney said. We weren't sure which voice might be most calming but also wise and Mother Maryish. But eventually settled on Dame Maggie Smith for the voice simulator. The AI does need a little more training, however. The real Blessed Virgin never encouraged people to invade Luton, I know that. But if she can encourage people they need to buy more tea lights and doilies, we'll be good.

Then we'll have Keith's Bunco Booth Game, where you bet on which piece of wood is a fragment of the True Cross. You can't win, of course, as none of them are.

Then finally, remembering we're world-affirming, tree-hugging kind of Forest Church pioneers, the Mystic Forest encounter. This is the one that's going to take the work. But by next May Day, it should be possible to pay a tenner a head for an hour's encounter with a sentient forest. The trees will creak and whisper secrets. The Mystic River will rise up to your waist when you least expect it. And the holographic dryads will dance with Herne the Hunter and Great Pan, just as they did when the world was young. A terrifying and yet numinous experience for all the family. You'll leave changed, refreshed, haunted, and soaked. Like visiting Manchester in the autumn, but without the despair.