GateGate

People are increasingly angry about the event they are now calling "GateGate". Allegedly in April 2020, I was seen standing at the gate in The Orchard, talking to Melissa Sparrow of Little Tremlett for several hours. This claim is apparently backed up by drone footage, CCTV, a sworn affidvait and twenty-three eyewitness accounts.

Obviously this whole event - which never happened - was completely innocent. Melissa was on her permitted once daily exercise. That she had walked 50 miles and still had to go home is testimony to her amazing fitness, caused by her terror of failing health and death. 

Death. Death. Death.

Sorry, I don't know what came over me there.

There have been allegations that the evidence of an empty gin bottle with my finger prints on, recovered from under the hedge next to the gate, means this was some kind of party. Nothing could be further from the truth. The debris of a Krispy Kreme doughnuts party pack likewise proves that the non-existent event was in fact a business meeting. Which we had to do in person, outdoors, as we needed to forge a lot of signatures. 

Claims that we then repaired to the Archdruidical Suite, where we played 80s funk-soul into the early hours, are clearly rubbish. What happened was that, overcome by the sixth Krispy Kreme which she clearly didn't eat because she wasn't there, Melissa started hallucinating that she was Edward "Ten Pole" Tudor-Pole. I had to bring her back to the 21st Century via the Punk Rock, Grunge, Brit-Pop and Spice Girls eras. Which is why we weren't loudly singing Adele songs by 4 am. 

As Beaker Folk will know, I asked Young Keith to investigate these allegations (Charlii being busy selecting wallpaper) and I'm pleased to say that there's definitely nothing to worry about in his report. However, since Young Keith's uncle, the police officer, has now, definitely independently, taken an interest in the non-existent meeting, Young Keith will only publish the outline of his findings for the long time being.

I can now share the report with you here:

"GATEGATE" REPORT

*** REDACTED ***

There is a gate in the hedge around The Orchard.

*** REDACTED ***

I would like to thank my mother, Archdruid Eileen, for all her support.

FIN

In Memoriam - Barry Cryer

 Archdruid: You'll have had your tea? 

All: Aye

HYMN:  "Abide with Me" to the tune of "Stop" by the Spice Girls

Archdruid: On this sad occasion, I was glad that we could at least have two stars of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" with us to help me conduct the service. But unfortunately Sven wandered off to enjoy our fine collection of kneelers. And when Samantha eventually caught him by the hassocks, he decided to go for a bit of  lie down. 

But I do have a letter from a Mrs Trellis, of North Wales. She says, "Dear Boris. Just give up. It's over."

And it's at times like this that we remember the power that music has to bring you to tears. So here's Colin Sell, on the piano.

A PARAPHRASE FROM THE BOOK OF ECCLESIASTES

There is a time to laugh
and a time to laugh
and a time to laugh 
and a time to laugh 
and a time to laugh 
and a time to laugh 
and a time to laugh 
and a time to stop.

EULOGY 

Lionel Blair: Hello. If you're seeing this on a recording, then it means I've died before you have. You swine. I'll be waiting for you.

HYMN: "The Old Rugged Cross", accompanied by kazoo and swanee whistle.

Archdruid: And so as the starling of time flies into the tennis racquet of destiny, and the vole of liminality drops into the void of eternity, I see that the service is over.

Barry Cryer: Mornington Crescent.

COMPLETE LIST OF ATTENDEES:

Mr and Mrs Best-Barry and their son, Aldo 

Mr and Mrs Fanera, and their son, Endo

Mr and Mrs Cheeky, and their post-modern daughter, l.o. cheeky

Mr and Mrs Kdalarf and their son, Eli

Mr and Mrs Bennet-Arethereanyofthemleft and their son.....

Lament for Someone Who has Been Ambushed with a Cake

 A junior minister nobody has ever heard of, Conor Burns, defends the Prime Minister by claiming he was ambushed with a cake.

Oh woe is me for I am undone

I am become as one who has been accosted by Colin the Caterpillar

Or even Clyde.

And now I am a trifle disturbed.

I am become as a jelly.

Why so downhearted, my spirit?

Why so downcast, my soul cake?

For it is butter cake.

I mean, but a cake.

I am as a sponge that is wrung out

And yet I will rise like a meringue

and return to the land of the Linzer Torte

and become like one of the angel cakes.

Where is now your Victoria Sponge,

O Death by Chocolate?

 

Lament Over the State of the Christmas Quality Street Tin

Behold the tin of Quality Street

Its poverty of flavours.

How are the mighty fallen

and the purple ones passed from our sight.

I remember our joy when we opened it

Our eyes full of tinsel and fire 

And our bellies with turkey 

and pigs-in-blankets.

And now behold!

There is a famine of green triangles

Of caramel swirls there is no sign

The milk choc block is as one that has gone down to the pit.

And we have nothing worth eating but fudge.

With tears will we eat orange crunches 

and with sadness consume strawberry delights 

But you can forget the coconut ones.

We suppose toffees are OK

In a "sort of thing our grandads used to eat" kind of way

But the coconut ones will we always have with us

Even unto next Christmas.

In our darkness there is just one ray of light

One shiny wrapper that gladdens our hearts.

At least we've somehow missed eating all the fudge

And so we will sing our grateful song.

All you need is fudge

All you need is fudge

All you need is fudge, fudge

Fudge is all you need.

Psalm for a Middle-Lane Driver

O how am I blessed to be in this middle lane

For truly it is a broad path.

Angry people pass to my left and my right

And I heed them not.

Though they open wide their mouths against me

And shake their fists at me

And some point their middle fingers unto heaven 

As if to say that is where God reigns 

Who judges  both the under-taker and the over-taker alike.

Many angry lorry drivers follow me

They flash their lights at me

And toot their horns at me.

They look longingly at the fast lane 

Bur the white dotted line tells them, "thus far and no farther."

Surely the miles-long queue in my mirror shall last forever

As I shall turn neither to the right nor the left 

But keep unto this middle way

All the days of my life

Or until I reach Nottingham.

Liturgy for the Death of Gary Waldhorn

Archdruid: No. No. No. No. No.

All: No. No. No. No.

Archdruid: No. No. No. No. No.

All: No. No. No. No.

Archdruid: No. No. No. No. No.

All: No. No. No. No.

Archdruid: No. No. No. No. No.

All: No. No. No. No.

Father Brown and the Incorrect Clerical Wear

"Father Brown," said Bishop Len, "I'm concerned about the reports I have been hearing."

The portly priest turned his eyes to the irate bishop. Len Brennan had, it was true, radically changed since he had been transferred from his Irish diocese. Some said that he had mellowed, once free from managing the denizens of Craggy Island. But he was still noticeable for his irascibility. And there had been that incident where Mrs McCarthy had kicked Len up the arse after losing a bet with Mrs Doyle.

"You must be wondering how I have acquired a Church of England building? I can assure you, Bishop Brennan..."

"No, no, no. I know all about the poker game with "Stinker" Pinker. Well done. Just a shame the members of the Ordinariate are so poor at cards. And the way you've managed to return an entire English village to the true Church is incredible."

"Then it must be my wearing a maniple as if it were a stole - and over the chasuble?"

"No, I understand that, Brown. Cutbacks in the BBC costume department."

"Well, a maniple would certainty be a cutback on a stole."

"I'll do the jokes, Brown. You stick to looking prim and offering to hear confessions."

"Then it must be the Braithwaite funeral? I'm afraid I was away, and..."

"All understood. Just never let Dougal..."

"Of course, Bishop Brennan. So what is your problem? Is it my scattering ashes, performing exorcisms from the wrong books or using the wrong words for confession? Or when I accidentally wandered across the diocesan border into Midsomer?"

"Not at all, Brown. All understandable in a badly produced pastiche of a series of books that were written by someone who loved and understood Mother Church. But you're a Brummie. Who thought that was a good idea? And, more to the point, you're over 6 feet tall. Chesterton clearly said you were short and portly."

Father Brown shrugged, and look confused. Walking through the 13th century vestry doorway once again he banged his head.

Why did that keep happening?

Christmas and Easter - A Proposed Revision

It's been the worst-case Christmas this year from a church service perspective. Same every time Christmas Day falls on a Saturday. You go from Advent on Friday morning to crib service / Christingle/ other crowd-pleaser at 4 pm. To Midnight Mass at 11.30. To Christmas morning on Saturday. And then suddenly it's Christmas 1 on Sunday and clergy and lay ministers and stewards and wardens and elders are dragging themselves back into Church while everyone else votes themselves Sunday off because it's Boxing Day.

There is a simple solution to this.

Move Christmas Day to the nearest Sunday to 25th December.

Then after Sunday/Christmas Day, everyone can have Boxing Day off. Except those really dedicated traddies who like marking the very important feasts that follow Christmas. Clergy and preachers can enjoy a drink without worrying that they have another service in the morning and doing a Dibley.

The Sunday after Christmas will always be the Feast of the Holy Name.

Epiphany will then always be a fortnight later than Christmas Day. On the Sunday. To avoid more clashes. This will give us 14 days of Christmas. So that's not bad.

It also means that you don't have that weird liturgical timing issue like this week, where Jesus is born in a manger, gets lost in Jerusalem, and is then praised by the Wise Men.

But what of Easter, I hear you cry. Well, I propose similar. Fix Good Friday as the nearest to 25 March. This means that the link of 9 months before Christmas is always kept, reflecting the old tradition that the Annunciation and the Crucifixion were the same day. This would mean that they do in fact coincide in our calendar every 7 years, giving us the chance to use John Donne's most poignant poem more often. 

Aha, you say. But then Easter Sunday will be the day the clocks go forward in the UK, six years out of seven. What about those people that attend 6 am Easter vigils? They're doomed to very early rising nearly all the time. 

To which my response is threefold. First of all, move the UK permanently to GMT and be done with this ridiculous rigmarole. Are we children that we have to lie to ourselves about what time it is?

Secondly, if you really think you need to move the clocks - do it on the first Sunday of April instead. What difference would that make?

But thirdly - the sort of people that like to get up for a 6 am service are just the sorts of people that would like to get up for effectively a 5 am one even more. The sleep deprivation is even greater, the dawn experience even more mystical. So they'll be happy.

Outside the world of Church, there are other advantages. With Christmas and Easter the same distance apart every year, retailers will be able to have consistent promotional campaigns and supply chain plans. Thus making planning simpler and thereby giving us happier and more efficient retailers.

So - a revised Christmas and Easter that will keep everyone happy. I commend it to Christendom.

With thanks to this tweet from @FrPsiChi for the inspiration.

Last Sunday of the Year

 Last Sunday of the year.

The really determined have one more Sunday service to go. 

The really sensible have been asleep for an hour or two this afternoon.

20 months of risk assessments, Government advice, Government not-advice, Government information and mis-information. Earnest scientists, vaccine conspiracy theorists and lockdown obsessives.

The people who don't want to leave the house, and the ones that think it's all nothing.

Whoever you are - stewards, wardens, ministers, choristers, organists, Methodists, Catholics or Pentecostals, pew-sitters or Bible-bashers - in God's strength you've done your best. Without being virologists, epidemiologists, biochemists, or bioethicists - you've done your best.

Don't count the numbers. Of course they'll be down. Don't count the Facebook views - they don't count for much. Don't look back two years. Nobody was terrified then. You can't compare anything to anything. 

So don't judge yourself. You've done your best.

You may need to mourn. You my not have done that when you really should have. That's OK.

Give it a few days till you buckle up. We go again in the New Year. 

But meantime, take it easy. You've done your best.

And it's the last Sunday of the year.

The LFT Before Christmas

LFT before Christmas and all through the manse 

Not a person was moving. All were in a trance. 

The minister's hands quivered over the kit 

and watched it. And watched. And scrutinised it.

 

The red control line showed up valid and clear 

and the minister knew that the truth would appear 

And mamma in worry looked over his head 

For fear that another line would show up red. 

 

For how could they cope with a positive line? 

They needed a void - an invisible sign 

that nothing had lurked up the minister's nose 

to lock him inside as the Yuletide cheer rose. 

 

For what would they do, at this late Christmas hour 

should the minister fall 'neath the Omicron power? 

Replacements were  few in the villages round

As the positives piled up like snow on the ground.

 

Christingle, the Crib Service, Songs 'neath the tree

Were now all at risk from this cursed LFT
And Midnight, and Morning, and Boxing Day too

would go out the window if this didn't come through.

So they watched and they waited, till minutes passed by

and they knew it was safe, and gave out a great sigh.

And the minister said, as he turned out the light

in the bathroom, "at least we are safe Christmas night."

Glimpses of Angels

Got the Archdruidical mid-Yule day off. Took the chance to get out to where I feel most connected to the wild, a two-hour journey out to where the Fens meet the sea.

Little plug, by the way. The Rising Sun at Gedney Drove End. They only have one real ale on (Abbot Ale) but Burton Dasset tells me it was beautifully kept. Looked after by lovely people. If you're anywhere near that (unlikely, I know, but you could be going from Nottingham to Kings Lynn or something) then well worth popping in.

So anyway. Just my kind of day. Not actually raining, but slightly misty. You couldn't see the sea from the sea-bank. The flag was down at RAF Holbeach, so you knew you wouldn't accidentally be blown to pieces. And I, who prefer the times of dying light and gloom at tea time, felt that sense of Northern European satisfaction that, though things may seem peaceful and dull, Ragnarok is coming. 

There's a brooding presence out there. The skies are, of course, huge. Even when they just hang there, gray. The sea - behind the mist and beyond the marsh - can be sensed rather than heard or seen.

All in all, a time and place to reflect on things. 

And out there, you reflect on those Old English saints, Guthlac and Botolph. Famed for taming the marshes, and thereby taking away the powers of the ignis fatuus or "Wills of the Wisp". So famed as exorcists. The ones who tamed the rogue lights.

And that ancient presence - hanging in the sky and the skies and the gloom and the silence - can we give it a name? People have tried enough. Lit fires. Put up stones. Shaken their fists at the sky. 

In a manger in Bethlehem, a young woman lays her son. The most ordinary thing of all. Down the ages, billions of mothers will take care of billions of children.  The light in that child's eyes shines with the light of the start of the universe. Outside, some scruffy shepherds have seen the glory of heaven. In here are just the glimpses of angels. The wide-eyed cherubim that saw the bang of the Big Bang are bowing down as they realise that God has done something they could never imagine - second-born as they are, and first-born in time. The Logos - the Word that holds all time and space in place - has become a point in time and space.

And the hopes and fears of all the years meet here tonight. Where the flickers from the fire give warmth to the mother and her careful, proud, still-worrying husband. And the one that first nudged the comets into their orbit lays there, so still, flickering in the firelight that throws shadows where they can see glimpses of angels.

And we, in twenty-first century England, whether in fenny wastes or the sulfur glow of cities. Whether chasing deals or wondering where the next fiver will come from. Tear yourself away from your phone or laptop or tablet (after reading this post, of course). Clear your head in the cool air. Look out at the dark or the light or whatever your house, flat or alternative accommodation is bathed in.  Look. 

Maybe in the shadows. Maybe in the face of someone you help. A homeless person or a foodbank client or someone you can't stand, but tolerate because that's what you are meant to do.

You may see glimpses of angels.