Telling Teenage Fortunes / November 14 2008
No.28
After General Assembly one morning, Julian Thorpe, an odious fellow student with eczema and a face like a knee, will throw a chair across the sixth-form common room at you because you said that Jesus was ‘one of the all-time comedy greats.’
I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost / October 12 2008
When I got back from London yesterday tired and weary, I picked the hairy one up from her grandma’s and drove home in heavy traffic trying hard not to fall asleep at the wheel.
‘I know it’s rather early, Audrey,’ I told her, ‘but I think I’m going to have to go to bed as soon [...]
O, Jehovah! / August 13 2008
‘Your arms are too short.’
‘What? Look, I don’t have time to listen to your bizarre suppositions. I have an eight-thirty, and before that I have to walk my dog and take a shower – not at the same time, obviously.’
‘You would be so welcome at our next meeting.’
‘Could I bring my dog?’
‘Certainly not. Jehovah’s Witnesses [...]
Sunday Best / May 11 2008
Have you ever pretended you were not in the house when someone was knocking on your door? That’s what Audrey and I were doing at 7:45 this morning when arch joker Reg, fulfilling the promise he made me last week, arrived to accompany me to Sunday Services at St Michael’s Church in the village.
Well, I [...]
Finding My Religion / February 6 2008
For a while now, I have been toying with the idea of starting a new religion.
It isn’t that I feel inadequately provided for or spiritually bereft in any way, neither am I living in purgatory or suffering any kind moral agony - it is simply that I think the time is right for a creed [...]
The Triumph of Good over Evil / April 18 2007
Just to keep you informed of the minutiae of day-to-day life in our Derbyshire village: the regional simpleton with the interminable, malfunctioning car-alarm has at last had his vehicle removed by the local authority. Yesterday, a man from the council arrived to carry it away on the back of a big red tow-truck. Hurrah!
It had [...]
Jesus Was a Punk Rocker / January 30 2007
A church in Lincoln is to host what is thought to be England’s first Holy Communion using rock music. The idea has been trialled in the United States since 2005 as a way of boosting dwindling congregations.
The Right Reverend Timothy Ellis, the Bishop of Grantham, calls it a ‘U2-charist’ - it will use hits [...]
Telling Teenage Fortunes / January 20 2007
No.1 You will drop the ball.
Who Do You Go Home To? #4 / December 18 2006
Audrey, Nelson and I were earlier returning from the shops – we’d been to buy Christmas booze and mince pies for the studio – when we met Bernard going in the opposite direction down the hill.
‘Ready for Christmas, Bernard?’ I enquired after him.
‘Will be, I’m just off to buy the ingredients,’ he told us.
‘Ingredients? What [...]
Why I’m Vegetarian / December 8 2006
I’m not a particularly religious Christian but I do enjoy the happy festivities of the Christmas holiday period. The fascinating family get-togethers, the handsome food and beautiful booze – a truly superior occasion.
Audrey takes great pleasure in it because she gets longer walks than usual, and on our return to the house, she knows that [...]
