Inaugural Sermon in Bogwulf Baptist Chuch

As the Good Book has it, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
Which gives me a small amount of comfort as I notice that, for this inaugural service of Bogwulf Baptist Church (formerly the Chapel of St Bogwulf) I am the only person present. If we include the persons of the Trinity, that brings us up to four. Or, if you are a Oneness Pentecostal, two. But Oneness Pentecostals are notoriously innumerate as well as heretical.
From across the lawn I hear the sounds of "Fairytale of New York" as the Beaker Folk celebrate the Feast of St Kirsty. Their so-called worship, devoid of content, devoid of doctrine, devoid of the fear of hell and damnation - well, frankly, from inside this cold chapel it feels quite attractive.


But I shall not be moved. Like Elijah in his cave, or like Moses on the mountain, or like Bunyan in his dungeon by Bedford bridge - I will hold fast while all others are swayed by the ways of this world. I shall sing my Baptist songs unaccompanied. I shall pray for revival in the land. When I return to the Great House for my lunch (Autumngirlsoup, whatever that is), I shall sit and glower with godly intensity. I shall not criticise, or indeed anathematise - for, technically, no Beaker worship has any doctrinal content, either for weal or woe - but I shall make it clear that I am following the better way - the narrow path, which is unadorned either with pebbles or tea lights. Or indeed any chance of self-expression.  I shall need neither Taizé nor Enya as I shiver here and wish I had enough congregation to raise a collection to put 50p in the meter that "Archdruid" Eileen has installed.


And now I shall sing "O for a thousand tongues to sing". Which would help no end.

How do you solve a problem like Drayton?

Using the executive powers vested in me, I've just banned Drayton Parslow's latest pressure group, "Drayton4Archdruid", whose intention was to remove me as Archdruid and replace me with Drayton.

This comes hot on the heels of yesterday's banning of his previous pressure group, "Eileen Musthavelessroom".  This was dedicated to reducing my suite of rooms to the same size as a standard Beaker Person's cell.  While the other rooms went to Drayton.

Then last week I had to ban "Beaker Folk4Drayton".

And then there was "Free Husborne Crawley".  It was ostensibly a campaign for Husborne Crawley independence.  Not as daft as you may think - we would have made a fortune charging tolls to people crossing Husborne territory to visit Woburn Abbey, and could abolish income tax in the village.  But actually it was me he wanted to free Husborne Crawley from, replacing my democratic, consensual Archdruidical rule with the tyranny of Drayton.

All in all I've banned 64 of Drayton's organisations over the last three years.  And I'm beginning to think it's not achieving anything.  At one point, realising that in fact Drayton is the only member of any of these groups, I banned Drayton Parslow.  But he just came back, claiming that his name was Milton Malsor.  Which I strongly suspect he'd just made up.  I even paid for a few days for Joe Pasquale to walk around with Drayton, saying everything for him in his silly voice.  But still he didn't see the error of his ways.

Still, [patriotic music plays in background] I will not cease from my ceaseless task, of banning all organisations which stand against me the values we all stand for - liberty, freedom, tea lights and my right to be Archdruid.

You know, it's just a long shot but I'm thinking that maybe beating him with sticks to drive out the demons might work?

Expenses Scandal

People have been asking why, under pressure from such notorious trouble-makers as Drayton Parslow, we have not adopted a similar policy to the MPs and appointed someone to go through the Druids' expenses for the last few years.  The suggestion is that if we find that any members of the Druidic council have over-claimed they should refund the money.

The fact is, it's very difficult to go through these expenses claims.  Those for 2004 were inadvertently turned into a papier-mache model of an oak tree during a "Messy Druids" session.  2005's were destroyed during flooding - you may remember that we found somebody had unfortunately dropped hundreds of unsold copies of Victoria Beckham's "Learning to Fly" into the brook, causing an unprecented rise in water levels.

2006's expenses were supposed to be wheeled in the expenses wheelie bin from my study to the Expenses Shed, but unfortunately somebody left them out for the night.  It's amazing how similar that bin was to the ones the council collects... 

Likewise early in 2008 we discovered that unfortunately somebody had used the expense claims for 2007 to light the Mayday wicker person.  And at the very end of that year, the Expenses Shed itself unexpectedly exploded after we needed to use it to store all those butane bottles, firewood and phosphorous.  Who'd have thought it?

And today I have to report the remarkable news that a dog got into my study and ate the expenses.

We managed to recover only the claim that was still in the dogs mouth.  I have had to enage in some serious document restoration, and resorted to some minor conjectures.  But the gist would appear to be that Drayton has put in a claim for a helicopter.  Since we have no need for a helicopter, and indeed there is no helicopter around that anyone can find, we have asked Drayton to return the money forthwith or face the full penalty of law.

Some Beaker People have suggested that we should hold expenses on-line in future, and possibly publish them on this website.  Definitely an idea we should consider.  Paper's all very well, but for real potential for creative amendment there's nothing like a computer.