When Trinity Sunday coincides with Brian Harvey Day

It occasionally happens that Trinity Sunday coincides with Brian Harvey Day.

On 31st May 2005, Brian Harvey of the boy band East 17 ran over himself with his own car after eating too many jacket potatoes.

And I looked into the history - sometimes troubled, it has to be said, of Brian Harvey and East 17. And I noticed that after many line up changes, only one original member of what is called E-17 now is still in the band. I'm not even convinced that they're all from Walthamstow.

And this isn't unusual, of course. People of a different generation will remember Syston's finest, Showaddywaddy. Still touring. Only one member left from the good old days though.

Or Genesis fans will argue that Genesis weren't Genesis when Peter Gabriel left. Or Steve Hackett. Or Phil Collins. And were Take That still Take That when Robbie left? Or when Jason did?

We don't apply the same criteria to other groupings of course. Nobody claims Liverpool aren't the same football club because the original line-up aren't still playing. It's the club that matters. Nobody says the London Symphony Orchestra aren't the same organisation as when they were founded, or Marks and Spencer fundamentally changed when Spencer left the band.

And I think we can learn a lot about the Trinity from that.