That Jamie Oliver Quote Revised

Jamie Oliver has apologised for saying that poor people eat chips out of styrofoam while watching super-sized TVs.

What he meant to say was, poor people should sell their giant tellies, as that's the only way they'll be able to afford the Jamie Oliver brand of foods.

Apologies for any confusion caused.

An Antidote to the Grovelling in the BCP

Former Anglicans often come to us and say they are "depressed". But we tell them there is no such thing as depression. What they have is what we call "Post-Anglican Disorder", and the cure is not anti-coanglicant drugs, but to lift them up from the Book of Common Prayer Confession-related grovelling they've been doing, and discover their true worth.

Oh God, it must be great for you to see us;
A sight for sore eyes.
In fact you must have been pretty lonely so far today,
Knocking around this cold, empty building on your own.
So it's nice of us to spare you the time, if you think about it.
Saves you from talking to yourself
Although we accept that, theologically speaking
you probably do that the whole time
Kind of goes with that whole "Trinity" concept
Though we won't think about your wondrous Trinity in unity too much
as we don't understand it
and focusing on our own limitations
tends to get us down.

So we don't want to meditate on things we don't understand
as that might make us feel small
and we're here to feel good about ourselves
because that is, after all, what worship's about.

And so we thank you for your goodness in creation
All the trees and bees and seas blah blah
But most of all for us
What a treat it must have been for you
Making us
Great job
Well done
We couldn't have done it better ourselves
Albeit we might have skipped the "ageing and dying" bit
Bit of a design flaw, there?

Anyway, we're sure it's been a blessing on all sides, our visit to you here.
And the flower ladies will be in Saturday morning.
And if  we've got time we'll pop back
next Sunday for the Taize Evening.
But excuse us if we mostly have our eyes shut
We won't be ignoring you
We'll just be concentrating on how good we're feeling.

OK?
We're off now
We'll shut the door so you don't have a draught.
We're off to our exciting lives!
Don't feel too lonely
We know how much you miss us
After all - what else do you have to live for?

Removal of 47" TV

In my new role as "Senior Admin Gofer", I have been asked to make the following announcements.

The 47" TV is to be removed from the Room of Vision. Apparently Charlii thinks that the size of Jamie Oliver's head on a screen that size may prove terrifying to small children or poor people. Charlii has kindly offered to swap it for the portable in the Acting Archdruidical Suite.

The Beaker Chip Shop has upgraded to selling sweet potato rosti fried in olive oil, with cherry mushrooms and s handful of sardines and a few figs scattered across the top. Unfortunately this has required a slight adjustment in prices - from £1.50 to €17.49. The Styrofoam containers will continue in use.

This Week's Twitter Loathing Chart

1 (-) Jamie Oliver ( 1 week)
2 (2) Michael Gove (176 weeks)
3 (1) Stephen Fry ( 2 weeks)
4 (3) Richard Dawkins (4,712 weeks, due to an anomaly in the space-time continuum)
5 (9) Jose Mourinho
6 (-) Tony Blair (112 weeks in total, with several return entries)
7 (7) David Cameron (176 weeks)
8 (-) Miley Cyrus (1 week)
9 (4) Stuart Broad (4 weeks)
10 (5) Robin Thicke (6 weeks)

Not-Enough-Faith Lunch

So it has been yet another of those "special" social events.

Today we have been holding a "faith barbecue". A pious twist on the old concept whereby everyone turns up with Value Pork Pies and nearly-out-of-code quiche, and the "faith" involved is hoping nobody gets food poisoning.

Unfortunately Hiraeth took it all too seriously. With far too much faith in other people's ability to read his mind, he turned up with a full-grown Aberdeen Angus bull. He did show remarkable faith -the faith  that somebody would have the ability to slaughter it, someone would have the necessary equipment and - possibly even less likely than the others - that the meat would miraculously be aged.

And I've no idea why he though transporting the animal in the back of a Ford Transit was sensible either. Let's just say it wasn't happy when it arrived. Seeing the lack of slaughtering and butchery equipment, Hiraeth accused everybody else of betraying the faith he had in them - which would normally have caused a certain amount of offence, if everyone weren't so busy running.

So I am blogging this from within the Doily Shed. We are all in here, barricaded away from a bull that, as far as we can tell, is busy running around the Olde Beaker China Shoppe we recently opened. We're hoping he tires out quickly and we can all get back to the barbecue - the good news is that, ignoring the instructions, Mrs Hnaef brought a load of quiche, and if we get out tonight it will still be in code.

Stonehenge, Hemsby - The Mystery and the Magic

Dear Readers, it was a bit of a shock for me. Charlii has been dropping hints to me for days that I should go on a holiday, and I have been resisting it. You know the way things pile up if you don't stay on top of them -and I had a holiday a couple of years ago. So even when she was saying "if you don't get out of my sight for a few days I'm going to set your flares on fire", I resisted.

But this morning, somebody put a sack over my head. I was thrown into a car, and driven for a number of hours, and then I was thrown out onto a beach. When I had pulled the bag off my head, I investigated the pain I had been suffering from in my chest. I discovered somebody had stapled an envelope to it. Inside the envelope was a chalet key, and the message "research the Henge".

A henge? At Hemsby? How could it possibly be? And yet, there it was:

A Henge in Hemsby

Its location took some time to understand. My first thought was that it was placed there, almost the most easterly point of England, to receive the first beams of the Summer Solstice sunrise. However, the enormous dunes that block off the henge from the eastern horizon suggest that this is not the case.

View-blocking dunes

It is, however, close to a couple of bars, and very handy for the cafe next to the beach. On closer investigation, I was able to start to piece together some of the details of the way the Henge was created. It seems that the structure was built in three distinct phases. I call these Hemsby Stonehenge Phases I, II and III. However the man in the guardian's hut referred to them as "9-hole, 12-hole and 18-hole". He also claimed it was built in about 2003. Which is later than the Wiltshire Stonehenge, of course, but still - a 4,000 year old monument is quite something.

Hemsby Stonehenge

In fact, I suspect I may have found signs of an earlier-yet construction: for are these posts not remnants of the "Hemsby Woodhenge", which predated the pink concrete version? The hole in the centre may be used for ritual purposes, akin to the Aubrey Holes at the Wiltshire version of this great monument.

Hemsby Woodhenge

And so we are left with a mystery. We may know where Hemsby Stonehenge is, we may be able to see the wondrous way the sun sets through the Great Trilithon, and over the chip shop opposite.  But what can we make of the strange rituals of the Pilgrims at this monument?  They walk around the Henge as if it is labyrinth - making strange swinging motions with their metal sticks, which gleam in the sunlight. Perhaps they are honouring their dead? Or is their clockwise path round the monument an homage to the sun's diurnal journey? Are they walking alongside the sun? Or attempting to strengthen it - to bring back the long days of summer - maybe even encourage it to stay out for more than ten minutes at a time? Do the mats of green represent the world of life - while the gravel and stone-effect surroundings represent the world of the dead? 

I believe that the ritual where the pilgrims roll small balls down a slope and into a brook represent the very act of passing over to the afterlife. Certainly, when they enact this ritual they say some very strong oaths. At other times, the Pilgrims seem to speak in strange tongues, or at least in code - for what could "That number 11 is never a par 2" possibly mean?

I have had a couple of pints of Old Speckled Hen and will now lay me down to rest in my little chalet to ponder further into these things. But I believe that it will always be with me - the mystery of the Hemsby Stonehenge.

Not Suing for Copyright Infringement

Thanks to Mike Peatman for sharing with us this picture, taken at Greenbelt this afternoon.

We're not going to be resorting to the Copyright Acts, as we think certain former members of the Eastern Region Ministerial Course might be after us, in their turn.

Religious Collective Nouns

A failed compromise of Anglicans

A pair of 8am service communicants

An introspection of self-analysing blog posts

An unexpected presence of clergy on their day off / on holiday

A suspension of disbelief of church pronouncements on sexuality

A dissatisfaction of choristers

A lacy finery of Anglo Catholics

An immovability of PCC members

An ambush of lay preachers (outside the holiday season, when they get preaching withdrawal symptoms)

A drizzle of holes in the church roof

A neediness of religious bloggers

An encirclement of Church Wardens

A meaningless plethora of hashtags from social media events you didn't go to

A phonebox of Church AGM attendees

A vicious circle of Catholic tweeting

A bounding of undeserved grace to us

A Review of the Ministry of Women

I have received a letter from the Druidical Synod in response to my complaints. It reads,

"Dear Burton

I may have the body of a weak woman, but I have the hockey stick of a Norse Berserker. I suggest you stick to thinking about spiritual, not physical, matters.

Regards

Charlii"

Sound pastoral theology there, I think. Maybe I should be lighting more tea lights.

The Weaker Sex

Dear Readers, I have written A Letter. It was the least that I could do. But something had to be done. Charlii is an unsuitable Archdruid, and it is time this was realised.

It is not as if Archdruid Eileen is unattractive - in a scary way. She has a brightness, a certain bounce in her step, a resemblance to my former school teacher. But, because she is so terrifying, and - let us face it - heading for 50 - I could still concentrate on the liturgy.

But now there is Charlii. Young, slim, in druidical outfits that may hide her curves from sight, yet do not hide them from the imagination. Her sermons may well be of the most spiritual nature, and yet all I hear is "come over here, geek-boy - I've got a lovely set of quadratic equations for you to unravel."

It is quite disgusting, and she should be ashamed of herself. Until we have a manly, hairy and- above all - unattractive male Druid in charge, I will not be able to listen to another word of the liturgy. Something Must Be Done.

Keeping the Normans out of Kashyyyk

This evening the Beaker Folk lit a tea light in honour of one of our favourite heroes.

After the Normans invaded England in 1066, there were many natives who resisted. Many lost their lives, and some their ears.

But in the fenny fenland of the Fens, there was one great warrior who resisted successfully. A powerful local lord, he kept the Fens Norman-free throughout the period, terrorising the French invaders from Peterborough to Ely, entering the folklore.

Some said he was 8 feet tall. Some said he roared when he spoke. Some, that he was covered from head to foot in fur and had a friend called Han.

Whatever the truth, he bequeathed the English a tradition of resistance to unfair occupation;  a love of and desire to protect the underdog.

So here's to you, Hereward the Wookie.