Sticky Wickets and Perfidious Preachers...

Is nothing sacred! Avid readers of these musings - three at last count - will recall last month's episcopal missive urging some tie-in or other with the Methodists. That, of course, was and is plain daft. Church is finest Tuscan extra virgin olive oil to Chapel's plain tap water. Both, of course, have their place at table, but mix the two and spoil 'em both is so very plain to see - to all but Bish Tom it seems.

This 'All for One and One for All' Christian unity malarkey is all very well in theological theory - and one admits strictly in line with our dear Lord's command to love one another as He loves us - but it fails utterly in frail human practice.

Not that one is urging any Keynesian free-market model of naked congregational competition; nor indeed any Darwinian evolutionary ecclesiology awarding victory to the fittest and Devil take the hindermost. Nothing as combative or as violent as this is my theme. All I rightly mean is that we all need our little tribe to which we give our loyalty and from which, in return, we receive our security. Team St. Boniface owes not least half its contentment from not being Team Our Lady of Succour - and vice versa.

Gone, mercifully, are the days when either side might seek to probe and prod the other's difference with sharp pitchfork or blazing faggots, yet a certain friendly rivalry still obtains as it should. Fr. 'Dismal' Dismus, over at Our Lady, will never let a lengthy dinner pass without just the once - possibly more if the port is exceptionally good - trotting out that oldest chestnut of all: 'You worship Him in your way and I'll worship Him in His.' H, bless her, will retaliate with her best low-cut blouse, strongest perfume and most outrageous flirting, aptly to demonstrate that clerical celibacy may be all very well for those who truly can take it, but must be pretty beastly for they who cannot - Dismal, it being oft alleged, very much one for whom the whole 'Noli me tangere' thing is a perpetual struggle.

Friendly joshing no more, that sort of thing. Just the one day a year do we draw back, heave on the heavy armour and prepare to do direst battle. Come, then, the second Saturday in July, comes also the annual inter-parish cricket match. Think 'Gott Mit Uns!', think 'Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition', think Henry V giving it large on St. Crispin day and you'll have some flavour of the right and proper partisan fervour engendered in each proudly loyal beating breast.

As befits any half-decent military campaign, strategic planning begins some several months before. Spring can have barely sprung before heads will be put together over pints down at The Dragon Inn, first praising the previous year's victory - or excusing its defeat. Thence calm, rational review of our team's many towering strengths - plus its very few weaker spots - will precede roaring determination to put one over the Dismus mob by fair means or....by fair.

This last my insisted strongest suit and, as Honorary Captain, the hand that is always played, howsoever fiercely resisted by my far less scrupulous team mates. There is - I will tell them each year as they do so need reminding of it - a fine but clear and impassable line between jiggery and pokery. On the one side sits preparing just the right wicket to suit our bowlers not theirs, or - though this I admit is a mite shady - leaving a crate of ale within sight of their alcoholic yet still mighty number three.

Quite, quite beyond the pale, though, are such dark deeds as the intent two years ago, by our slip fielders, to use putative parish gossip cruelly to intimidate and fatally to distract the other side's batsmen. Thus - "VAT man been round again has he Clive? Can't be easy keeping afloat what with your Deirdre's spending habits." Or worse still - "How's that Derek of yours doing in Pentonville these days Adrian? Finding it a bit tough I suspect, what with his good looks." Perfectly outrageous you'll agree. Overheard the blighters practising their lines and sent three of them packing an hour before the toss. Plenty of afters too as you can well imagine. Took a threatened parish newsletter revealing and shaming all to quell the ripening dissent.

Anyways, this year all was going perfectly smoothly on the preparation front - H even promising not to attempt a repeat of her exotic South American tea that so divided opinion last year. Personally I can take or leave roasted guinea pig with equal ease, though I can perfectly see an alternative perspective - more or less universally held on the day - that the day Peru is recognised as a Test playing country is quite soon enough to be sampling its national dish of household pet.

The team then settled - same as last year though without Perkins Min. on third change as he was on Australian post-college walkabout and out of contact; Perkins Maj. an acceptable if half-witted substitute - the pitch readied to take seam only (our forte), the scorer confirmed as having taken all his medication for the past month at least and so necessarily forth; all this duly accomplished, what happens but I have the Dean on the phone on Thursday evening telling me that Bish Tom is 'strongly minded' that it would be a great ecumenical wheeze if I were to ask Methodist Preacher Simon to put up a couple of his chapel players for the match!

Even the Dean - Tom's most loyal supporter through episcopal thick and thin - had to admit, with some forceful prompting on my outraged part, that this was quite the most idiotic, cock-eyed, daft, deeply damaging and hurtful notion ever to have dared to show its miserable face around these parts. Setting aside any antipathy I might have for the whole project (see above); not counting even my personal dislike of Preacher Simon as a puritanical sneak who, in his day job as local village Bobby, showed himself hell-bent on nicking my little runabout for being somewhat road-tax free (see previous); what in heaven or on earth was His Dis-Grace thinking I would do? Just casually inform a loyal player of some twenty years or more service to his team that he was to be sacrificed on the altar of faux 'Christian unity'? That enough, I assure you, to turn the whole village back to its pagan roots and me with it what's more!

The other thing about Preacher Simon that gets my billy goat is that he is fat, hugely fat as you ask. Call me insensitive, call me uncharitable, call me theologically ill-informed - but when a fellow goes round espousing all that is lean and shrivelled in human conduct, then I expect him at the very least - in propria persona - to evince that way of living, as if dining alone and unloved off nothing but raw vegetable matter and rank dislike of anything resembling fun. I do not expect some gut-bucket to be telling me not to eat all the pies as he clearly quite fancies them himself.

The Dean duly dispatched with a veritable nest of fleas in both ears, the telephone rings once more. Disaster! News comes from Australia that Perkins Min. has got himself right up a judicial gumtree - matter relating it seems to some inebriated and naturally hapless endeavour at midnight alligator wrestling in Sydney zoo. Fellow has lost a chunk of his right arm and all of his freedom. Foolish, unhappy boy. Even sadder to discover that blood is thicker than cricket and that both Perkins Maj. (substitute third change) plus Perkins Père (sound middle order) are heading South to the rescue.

Admirable though this familial bonding in times of crisis may be chez Perkins, where does this leave me but two down and - gall loaded upon wormwood - little choice but to see if Preacher Simon and his mob could after all come to our aid. Hysterical amnesia of the whole wretched process has mercifully robbed me of any recollection of my grovelling convo with the Dean, or of Preacher Simon's instant promise to turn up on the day with a fellow puritan chum [Aside: are Puritans allowed chums?] and to 'fight the good fight with all their might'. Promising approach I grant you that martial air, but God forbid any hymn singing as such on the pitch. Dismal's lot wouldn't know where to put themselves. 'God bothering' they would call it and rightly so in my book.

The day dawns, the teams assemble, when hoving into view comes Preacher Simon and his chum. At least they're both wearing decent whites. Should have expected no less from the evangelical wing I suppose - always accusing us middle-of-the-roaders of being several shades of grey - but a relief none the less.  Even more remarkable, just as Preacher Simon breaks - as it were - the puritan mould in being a porker, so too does chummy Clive, who looks an absolute super athlete with a dash of actorly charm to boot. Six foot and some, rippling muscle upon rippling muscle, clean chiseled face with just the right amount of stubble to set the ladies a-twittering. How do I know this? Could hear the twittering from the tea room without having to look!

All very odd. Could this hunk of a chap really be 'one of them'? Terribly alarming prospect if this gets around. Women folk beating a path to Chapel's door and all that. Funnily enough, never seen him about the place before. Not my habit of course to go poking around Chapel to see what's up, but if he were local within twenty miles I cannot imagine it would have gone entirely unnoted. No one else on the team seemed to know him either, though in truth most were too focused on sucking in their bellies to be much help.

"Simon, my good man," - no way would I be using the 'Preacher' bit - "perhaps you could introduce your companion. You of course we know from your daily presence within our Parish, upholding the law, serving and protecting, no fear no favour and so forth, but this fine looking young fellow is a complete stranger to us all." (Best not to mention the 'road tax disk checking' angle at this juncture. Team bonding and all that.)

What then transpires is an absolute belter. Safe to say that in all my years as Captain of the St. Boniface Pilgrims have I never been so taken aback or, indeed, presented with such a troubling moral dilemma. For, as Simon quietly informs us, chummy Clive is indeed not really 'one of them', but an Oxford man who happens to be smitten with the Preacher's daughter and come down among the hicks and hayseeds pressing his suit. Up to a point one can see his - Clive's - point, for said daughter is a total cracker. (Must be from her mother's side. No way could Simon be the majority shareholder in that genetic merger.) Bit rough his having to leave the dreaming spires for unaccompanied psalms around the scrubbed kitchen table before dawn, but love being love and all that. No more need be said.

Here then - for me - if not so the team the first difficulty as Clive is clearly not 'of this parish'. When bounds are duly beaten come Rogation Week our man would not be found living within 'em. Now there are no strict and written rules about this - none certainly ever signed between ourselves and Our Lady - but it has always been taken that only bona fide parishioners participate in the game. 'Spirit of Village Cricket' and all that. Simon - quite the outsider in so many ways - taking a different view. His lot are more akin to the Borg, far less a matter of geography and so much more about - in this case a pretty loose - affiliation to the whole chapel tribe. Sort of a diaspora but without the fur hats or ringlets. You could, of course, as easily construct a 'Jesuit XI' on that same principle, but yet it still struck me as a bit rum - quite on the cusp of jiggery and pokery indeed (see above).

Could tell I wasn't quite carrying Team Boniface with me on this, they all keen to let him play up and play the game even if a bit on the QT. That but though the loosener it came to pass. For not only was this Clive hunk an Oxford man but also an Oxford Blue at boxing and - of course - cricket! Not then the wandering scholar who just happened to be passing, but a complete ringer cunningly contrived by shameless Preacher Simon to win us the day and his lot the glory. I tell you this - should you ever need something underhand accomplished, find yourself a serving police officer who is also a lay preacher - preferably an apron and compass johnny as well - and you can consider it done!

There are times when ramifications and repercussions simply roar and rattle through the head. If, as I must, I spurn Simon's cheating ways on grounds of the furtherance of cricket as a force for good in this largely benighted land of ours; if, as I say, I were to do the right thing I would be totally in the wrong with Team Boniface, for whom victory at all and any cost is the only thing. More, news of this moral outburst of mine would soonest reach Bish Tom's ears. Could I depend then on his support and shelter when the thunderclouds of error threaten to pour down scorn on the shoulders of the righteous? You can see my problem.

At this juncture, let it now be said that from henceforth Fr. Dismal can do no wrong. I bow before his theological science, I positively kow-tow to his liturgical art. Wants he me to be more Catholic than the Pope? He has but to whisper it in passing and I am Vatican bound. How so? This so. For as I stood darkly pondering my lose-lose options and wondering how I might put a positive spin to H on a new posting to Wales (her absolute and final bête noire for reasons never yet fathomed), over strides Dismal with grim news of his own and a humble request for a great favour.

Turns out that two of his mob have simply failed to show on the day and he's down to nine against our eleven. Could he perhaps borrow one of Team Boniface to make a proper game of it? Could he! Never was a Gordian Knot more swiftly sliced than this terrible one of mine. "Have this young Clive. Not one of our regulars, but was going to blood him anyway. You're most, most welcome to try him out on our behalf." Dare anyone utter a squeak of protest? Dare they not for dear of foul discovery! I swear I saw a button or two crack on Preacher Simon's bulging best white shirt as he strove in silent anguish to contain his fury and despair. Team Boniface quelled with that certain stern gaze that reads: 'If this gets out you'll be the laughing stock of the county, so just lip it OK?'

Did feel a bit sorry for poor Clive. Could tell that he'd rapidly - as an Oxford man ought - worked out that this tactical team change would do his suit no favours with the father of the piece. But to his eternal credit (funny what does get written into the Book of Life) he did not hold back. Our Lady won the toss - funny too how that always happens, perhaps God is a Catholic after all - and we are put into bat. Clive opens the bowling. More or less closes it too. Never has seam bowling of the like been seen around these parts and, having been on the receiving end of some of it, never again would be quite soon enough for me. First ball was an absolute screamer just missing tip of the nose; second a cunning swinger almost clipping off-stump; third a straight up and downer of simply colossal speed that one, of a mercy, managed to heave high in the sky for any to catch it who should wish.

Rest of Team Boniface fared little better: forty-two for seven by tea with three bruised rib-cages and at least one kamikaze run-out rather than face another cruise missile (Shan't say who bottled it. Any one of us could have cracked. Team solidarity and all that.) Post-prandial fielding didn't do us much better. Turned out - who would have doubted? - that Clive was as handy with the bat as deadly with the ball. Our meagre total was soon swatted away and it was off to The Dragon before George properly had time to line up the many pints needed by both sides.

Naturally enough Preacher Simon did not join our traditional post-match revels, strong ale - or indeed weak beer - not being his thing. Shame in one way that he was not then present to witness the unifying effect of some light libation - Our Lady and Team Boniface soon in one harmonic voice. (An ecumenical beer festival could even be the way forward in faith. Might suggest that to Bish Tom. Chapel wouldn't be able to come, but we'd survive the loss.)

Got talking to Dismal as one Captain of Side and Souls to another. Couldn't really let on about Preacher Simon's intended devilry; not - though I could wish it so - through any scruples on my part about dobbing him in it with Dismal, but, much more I fear, from fret about how I would have answered the inevitable inquisition: what would I have done in the end had Dismal not been short? Still don't know. (Perhaps I ought to sign up for that advanced Moral Theology course the Dean is always banging the drum for. Doubt though if even they could give a good answer.)

Anyways, I did dare to ask how come Dismal was two down on the day. His mob have loyalty to the cause writ through them like so much seaside rock, so for two stalwarts - brothers even - simply to no show did seem a puzzle worth unpicking. Dismal was just in the middle of explaining that he had no explanation for their absence, when the pair of them burst through the Dragon's door in a positive whirlwind of apology come fury: apology for their seeming apostasy, fury at the real cause of it. Farming lads the pair of them, there had been some recent sharp discussions with the King's Men regarding the possible sale of agricultural diesel for unlawful use in motor cars. Swore blind it were none of their doing, as they would, no proof emerging, as there might, the whole affair seemed to have settled quietly into a standoff.

Then the morning of the match, out of the dawn mist came a dawn raid by a dozen or more of the King's Finest, threatening no end of search, seizure and arrest should not the brothers agree to co-operate in a comprehensive on-the-spot investigation. Had a tip-off they said. Some really fat bloke came into their offices in N the day before. Said he was certain they'd strike pay-dirt, but hurry as the stuff was being moved out the next day. Nothing the brothers could do about it but stand by and hope that no one would fancy checking the slurry pit where they'd thoughtfully hidden the illicit drums. Which of course they didn't.

The sneaking, snivelling so-and-so! No wonder he slunk off at close of play looking so very, very shifty. Tried to play both ends against middle stump and got clean bowled instead. Serves him jolly well right, the perfidious porker. Will save this one for the next time Tom gets some damn fool idea in his head about Church and Chapel 'doing it for Jesus'. (Always useful to have a hidden doosra to unleash when needed: 'Sorry Tom, didn't you see that one coming? Never mind, better luck next time.') For as dear Ecclesiastes knows - there is a time to play the straight bat and a time for the mighty slog over mid-wicket. Wise cove that particular Preacher. Will have him on my team any time.

Belated Bloomsday...

Awkward those moments, aren't they, when you suddenly realise a day or two too late that you've forgotten someone's significant anniversary, their special day of remembrance. Their birth or their wedding day perhaps, or fifty years devoted if always slightly under the note service to the Choir, or - not infrequently in my line of work naturally - the hatch, match or despatch of a loved one. The instant sharp pang of guilt that follows the flash of failed memory; the scrambling to consider whether late reparation is better - or worse - than maintaining a thoroughly undignified silence; the puzzlement that one could be such a fool as to forget.

Being a rather rude mechanical, I am not terribly well versed in these modern electronic gadgets that the youthful brigade tend to use to remind them of all that must be remembered - but also much trivia that might not. Curate Cuthbert, for one, spends hours pouring over his flashing little device into which he loads everything, from forthcoming appointment for a smart trim with Derek the demonic barber, to Cousin Betty's nephew's christening, to the next time he is striped down for tea with the Bish.

That last a ghastly affair - how one does so recall them - more or less every Quarter Day, when junior clerics across the piste are perforce drawn together for an afternoon's hugger mugger with His Grace and the spouse - who somewhat confusingly is also a Grace. Not really one for small talk, our Bish Tom, nor yet the occasion for any bigger talking, the two hours or so of stilted convo in the best parlour are - as Dean 'Darling' Charlie would have it - pretty fair proof that the doctrine of purgatory must have legs. All in all, quite how any gizmo that prevents one from pretending to have forgotten to turn up and be bored senseless for no useful purpose whatsoever adds to the gaiety of nations is beyond me.

Did once tackle Cuthbert on this very point - life shortness of, tea with Tom direness of - but blow me down his riposte was a blinder I have to own. For apparently, he can programme - I believe is the word - this very same electronic kit of his to send him a timed and thoroughly faked 'urgent message', allegedly requiring his immediate presence to attend upon an utterly fictitious parish emergency, just as His Grace's Grace is about to pour her perennially too-weak brew. Cunning Cuthbert thence earning double Brownie points for having shown up in the first place and then for dashing away - seemingly to all - to minister to some distressed and gentle soul. Pah and pash, pash and pah, is all I can say to such brilliant if deviant behaviour. Never happened in my day, more's the pity, but then we lacked any such necessary android accomplice successfully to carry off the deception. (Realise now of course why the Curate in the case likes to refer to his Blueberry thingy as his 'Bunbury'.)

But then, do not these cold machines - ever so faultlessly efficient as they may be - fatally detract from the essential human quality of remembrance? A little light aide memoire is one thing, but what is virtually a surgically-implanted memory chip is something else altogether and not, on the whole, one I much fancy.  I Rector - with all my inbuilt lapses and failings - to be preferred to 'I Robot' every time. One hopes of course that H would agree, though perhaps best not to press too closely on the matter.

There are, of course, certain occasions or events one would utterly fail to forget even if one were terribly minded so to do. Don't tell me that you - or I - simply 'forgot' about that appointment for root canal work last Wednesday. The imprint of searing terror on your naked soul is not a thing to be lost sight of in some general fug of oblivion. Psychic cancelling out of a future too hideous to contemplate - hysterical amnesia one believes it to be - may occasionally be allowed, certainly in the case of something so beastly as RCW. (Not tried it? Then go see dear Dustin suffering for his art in 'Marathon Man' and you'll get some sense of the lighter end of the horror of it all.)

Other - perhaps more public - events one is equally unlikely to overlook. Sunday pip emma we shall all trying our best to be beastly to the Germans once more shan't we? Even if we have not the slightest interest in the game of football as such, even if a stiff afternoon walk is our determined pleasure of the moment, the mind will not fail to register that cometh the hour of None cometh the kick-off.

'Bloomsday' is one such unmissable - certainly for the people of Dublin in general and the denizens of Dún Laoghaire or Howth Castle and Environs in particular. Joyceans too the world over will have June 16th striped down as the diurnal orbit within which turns all the action of 'Ulysess'. Simulacra of Molly and Stephen, or dear old fading Bloom himself, parade the streets, a-declaiming and a-re-enacting to their hearts content. You couldn't miss it if you wanted to, which perhaps is the view of not a few modern day Dubliners.

There was a once, precisely five years ago, when I too didn't miss it. With a set and a particular purpose I had my twenty-four hours pounding the streets of Dublin in honour of the day, the book, the city and the author. That having been told of at length in some other place, it but serves now to say it was so. Why, though, it was so does merit some relevant mentioning.  Five years to the day before the five years to the day that one was there, came some stern and certain news that the Almighty had most certainly marked me down for an early bath with harp lessons attendant. A most unreasonably aggressive cancer of a most minging kind having been confirmed by an evening telephone call from the infallible Head Vet. "Terribly sorry to have to tell you this, dear boy, but..." and so forth.

All a bit grim and glum as you might imagine. Not really a moment to be setting 'personal goals' - other than perhaps not to break down sobbing in the street the next morning - but it, some five years later, transpiring that by quirk of nature - or of supernature indeed - one might not after all find oneself on the subs bench before half time, as it were, it did seem then - still does - a fair trade to leg it over to Dublin for a pointed, if quirky, fête d'anniversaire.

If then so for a five years marker, how much the more so for the ten year spot just past? Back to Dublin once more might have smacked a bit samey, but surely there would be great thanksgiving for graces received, a decent amount of lip-chewing reflection on the oddness of it all; not least much partaking of Irish whiskey and Guinness porter?

You'll of course have caught the drift of the piece that none of this came to pass; one totally indeed blanked the day. A goodly - in truth a ghastly - week passed before one even noticed one hadn't noticed. Some might say all to the good, look forward not back - that sort of thing. Don't on the whole buy that one it must be and is said. Very much with Eliot on the time eternally present time unredeemable angle of course, what sensible fellow isn't? That though not here the case in point.

Did read somewhere that it's all been worked out by the most scientific method possible - best guess about the unknown based on what we think is already known - that the human mind can only hold seven things in the active memory at any one time. Shove in one end a further item of necessary recall - Deirdre can't do the Church flowers for Saturday's wedding as her Derek's got himself banged up again so she's off once more for a spot of prison visiting that day - and another - must sort road tax before sunset as new constable is strict Chapel and would no doubt most uncharitably relish slapping me a sharp rebuke and fine if he spots the deficit - flies out the other.

Could that be it? Maybe so, given all that piles the plate and duns the pate at present - including of course another bout of previous. (This one they say won't kill me. Joyce might - but I shan't at all - find it funny if they've got that one wrong as well.) General mental decrepitude along the traditional clerical lines could also be the thing. Bit of an occupational hazard that one. Comes in many guises and variants: the seemingly bumbling Vicar who, in reality, could give dear Miss Marple a head start in spotting the villain of the village piece; or the wilfully amnesiac Canon who prefers not to remember all the sad and sinful doings of his parishioners lest it put him off his pie, pint and pipe.

Somewhere in the middle spectrum comes this fellow. Old chestnut of a story, been the rounds in many a diocese, numbers of folk marked down as the bod in question. Goes something like this:

Chap prone to doing his front-garden gardening of a Saturday morning. Cleric of the place prone also to cycling by of a same Saturday morning. Seen though walking by one week. "What's the matter Parson, lost your bike?" says Gardener. "Rightly so, it seems to have vanished," replies Parson. "Been stolen do you think?" "I fear it might be so."

Gardener ponders a spell, then has sharp idea: "Tomorrow morning preach a hell-fire sermon on the Ten Commandments. When you get to the 'Thou shalt not steal' number, fix them all with a hard and a gimlet eye. You'll spot the guilty one right enough." Parson acknowledging that sounded a belter carries on his way.

Saturday following once more passing is Parson upon bicycle and not foot. "Ah," says Gardener, "I see you got your bike back. Did you try my trick?" "Well, up to a point I did," says Parson. "I was doing as you suggested, when lo and behold just as I got to 'Thou shalt not commit adultery' I suddenly remembered where I'd left it!"

It wasn't me all right. I'm sure I wouldn't have forgotten if it were.

Farewell My Lurcher...

...he came as a companion to the collie (not border but 'borderline', to use Jilly Cooper's fine phrase), both of them rescue dogs so full provenance unclear. Word on the street was he had been horridly mistreated then abandoned - bred, as a lurcher, to hunt but possibly too daffy to to please his itinerant masters. Certainly fast enough - in his prime could give a greyhound a flying start - but lacking maybe the full killer instinct. Go with the flow was his thing. Perhaps a natural Buddhist.

Not that he was easy going from the outset. Whatever had hurt him had deeply pained him. The pain led to fear, the fear to naked aggression. Funnily - miraculously rather - never towards the collie. But with any other dog it was war at first sight. We tried training classes - got thrown out after the second - we used a muzzle as ordered. Happy as larry in the house, a monster out. Had me off my feet twice trying to hold him back from attack.  Didn't care for visitors either. A knock at the door and the door was half chewed. Friends and neighbours began to draw back.

Animal shrinks scratched his and their heads and opined that perhaps he was merely trying to preserve what he had, and was simply being protective both of us and of his environs.  Whatever the cause, the outcome was deeply troublesome. Could he attack a human, a child maybe? Was he a 'dangerous dog'? It was a possibility and being a possibility was not one with which we could live. So with heavy hearts we sent him back after six months to the rescue centre from whence he came.

What then was to be his fate? Obvious really. No other sane bugger would have him, he would spend the rest of his life in a cage with occasional outings and he would hate every minute of it. Two months later we had to relent. If he was to have any quality of life we alone were the ones who could and would give it him. And what do you know? As if he knew that he had nearly blown it, from the moment he returned he was a reformed character.

All right, that is not strictly, fully true. For a year or two there was always that frisson that he might lose it; but he never did, eventually settling for the life that lurchers love best - a good daily run and then huge basketfuls of utter indolence. Did once burst through a fence in chase of a singularly unimpressed cow, which resulted in a busted then an amputated tail. Show, also, him a woodland and off at once in chase of largely phantom rabbits. All as nature intended.

As the years progressed, the gallop slowed to the canter, then to the gentle trot, finally the sedate and oft pausing to sniff the air walk. (Downwards transition they would say of a horse.) In the house too big for a lap-dog he would lean his head on my lap and - well yes - smile. He and the collie as near bum-chums as two spayed dogs can be - lots of deep ear-licking the nearest they came to full on loving. A happy boy for year upon happy year.

Then some encroaching unhappiness. First, two brushes with cancer that might have floored him but didn't. (Vets bills the size of a Sistine Chapel redec.) A back leg with a chunk missing and then half a lower jaw gone. Nothing though seemed to phase him. Eat, walk, sleep, snog the collie - an eternal cycle.

But not forever. He survived one gastric torsion last month. Emergency major surgery, stomach pinned to the body wall. That sort of thing. But not this second episode tonight. When a dog's belly is swollen like a barrage balloon, when his flesh and skin are tighter than any drum, when he is crying in unrelieved agony, when there is no hope from further surgery, then a loving, weeping owner has only one choice.

The syringe was large, but he was docile. He lay down as if to sleep, stretched out as ever he did and was gone. Farewell my lurcher - Spiral, Big Boy, the Colonel - the locals called him, Mr Cheese - God knows where that came from.

My dear friend.

Touch Me, Feel Me...

...It is not, you will understand, my habit to be found holding hands with an achingly beautiful lady doctor. Not even with, as in the case in hand - as it were, one radiant with late-term pregnancy.

H, of course, would take a dim view of it. One imagines, too, it not playing well at any subsequent Consistory Court - 'conduct unbecoming', 'clerk in holy orders' and all that stern stuff. Does happen of course, from time to time. Not to me thus far that is, but the odd parson or two has had to face being brought to Bell, Book and Candle for such matters. Not a pleasant experience for any concerned, one can well imagine. By report - and this is quite shaming - the woman of hue deemed scarlet frequently copping far more of the blame for leading a 'good vicar' astray than the man himself who often, one knows, made most if not all of the running.

Pure (if one may say it thus when one ought in truth call it 'impure') lust is one thing - the whole 'Vicar Always Ringing Twice' much in the manner of the errant postman malarkey. More naughty than nice, but not necessarily utterly wicked. Nor indeed is the Eve in question always utterly without fault. One recalls the young hunk of an innocent curate so caught out, who escaped with but a written warning when it emerged in Court that the local WI had run a book on who would be the one to relieve him of his clearly troubling virginity. (It was the grocer's wife - 5/2 second favorite - if you must know.)

But far more troubling are those times when some parishioner pitches up at the Rectory door in deep personal distress, only to find herself bedded 'as part of the healing process'. 'Tis a handy clue - if you ever hear that line of defence being used at any aforementioned Consistory Court, then you know full well that the man should at once be taken outside and shot. True enough that this is not always any blatant abuse of position or power; can as easily be more professional sympathy morphing into human empathy, moving thence to personal caring, to mutual warmth and so to bed. (In, however, such cases the only possible judicial approach is filthy guilty before being proven beyond any shadow of any doubt and then still not really convinced innocent.)

Avoidance of any such temptation - or shall we say bedevilment - is banged into the thickest of all seminarian skulls these days. Whole screeds of episcopal parchment are scrawled with sound, if baffling, advice about 'maintaining appropriate professional boundaries' or 'transference avoidance mechanisms'. So much, indeed, is the wind put up the average cassock on the matter that I have even heard of one poor Catlick fellow who asked a somewhat dazzling woman seeking confession on matters adulterous whether she wished for a chaperon!

Over-compensating by half, many a cleric will run a mile backwards (try that in a cassock!) to avoid being seen to be too touchy-feely with the halt, the lame or the vulnerable. Not quite on the old blunt Army line of these things - 'One pace forward everyone with two parents! Not you Corporal Wilson!' - but close. Funnily enough, I have, I am told, a rather soothing pew-side manner. Never really imagined it was my kind of thing, but apparently 'tis so. H herself will tell me that folk have stopped her in the street and passed decent comment on how I have helped them through their troubles. Even the occasional note from the diocesan secretary to advise me that my 'surveyed sympathy satisfaction quotient' has exceeded this year's regional average weighted target. (You can imagine the simple, heart-felt joy that the latter brings!)

Are we then back to this achingly beautiful doctor and the whole my-hand-in-thy-hand thing? Indeed so. Is this then me exercising my professional magic once more? Au contraire, as it were, 'twas she hers. 'Can't hardly grasp a tin of beans,' said I to her, 'without it hurting like buggery' by way of stark explanation of my presence in her surgery. Was this then the exclusive prelude to her grasping my mitts with hers and giving them a thorough going over by way of differential diagnosis? Absolutely. Did I though silently opine that were there other circs. applying I would rather more than not be perfectly content to be so held for a decent spell? I cannot, in truth, claim not.

Was though, in conclusion, any fleeting fantasy on my part swiftly dashed when said achingly beautiful doctor let go my hands with not 'Darling, we know it cannot be...', but 'It's either osteo-arthritis or gout or both. We need more tests to be sure'? Must you ask?

May indeed, now, need to rethink the whole touchy-feely thing from my end. Met, this very morning, some hearty fellow in the High Street who insisted on shaking my hand with vice-like grip and a fiercesome pump action to drain the very Fens. Have to say that my resultant loud yelps - call them screams - of naked agony quite roused the attention of all within a good hundred yards, not to mention entirely robbing this slight moment of social intercourse between parson and his parishioner of its rightful and proper pleasure.

Am having, therefore, to consider viable alternatives. Raising one's closed hands in greeting in the manner of some Hindu ascetic is one possibility. Could be a bit tricky that if they only get the idea that I am praying over them. I do of course, and they know I do, but it's not something about which one likes to make any kind of public fuss.

Another option - one that does appeal and should be efficacious if causing some anxiety in more sensitive souls - is to break out that old favourite seminarian tee-shit with the wondrous motif: 'Back off! Do I look like a f*$%*"g people person?'

'Yours in Faith...' A Bishop concludes.

Better of course than the dread 'forward in faith', which does so grate. Simple rule of epistolary style - if you could not say the opposite of what you have said, then what you have said is meaningless. Viz. - there could be no 'backward in faith', a concept unnatural; there could neither be 'forward without faith', a proposition ungodly. Ergo 'forward in faith' is pure pants.

A simple 'Yours faithfully' would indeed suffice for all, though granted it does rather smack of an old-fashioned bank manager courteously writing to lament the dire state of the Parish overdraft more than any a gung-ho and get 'em Bishop keen to win all souls for glory.

But what then between the aforementioned 'Dear Colleagues in Christ' and this now faithful adieu? As often so, dear Canon 'Pewter' Potts has nailed it. Fellow phoned me this very afternoon to chew over this latest episcopal missive, giving his sound and trenchant view of the thing as it seems to stand. 'Harumph' the initial pre-lingual yet truly emotional verdict. A good start.

'Ite missa est my arse' the more considered if saucy and entirely confidential view. We clerics must be allowed to let off steam too you know. Never, of course, would we ever permit ourselves to be overheard laying into a godly - or even a thoroughly ungodly - parishioner. No 'That scarlet woman' for us thank you. The public - or worse secret - denunciation of any sinner never does do any good. Though indeed so advised by the Great Apostle himself no less, on this - as on so much - I deign to disagree with his whole approach.

There are, of course, sinners whose conduct must be stopped dead in its track; when harm to the little ones is in the question for example. But even here it is not so much a matter of waving the Cross before their eyes in defiance of their shame, more rather beating them over the head with the very weapon of faith. Show me a pervert and I'll show a man - mostly - with a dent in his skull. (Saint Paul, I am certain, would much approve.)

But this is to stray beyond the matter presently to hand. Potts and I must be allowed our little moment of mockery at the Powers that must Be. Why then so cross? What causes this leviathan of the deep - for this our dear canonical friend a creature of largely silent and removed from sight aspect - to rise to the very surface and roar thus to our very faces?

Do, in passing one asks, whales 'roar' as such? I know they can make loud noises-off as it were. H was - for a short while mercifully - quite into those 'hug an animal today' CDs that purported to be recordings of whales calling across oceans one to the other. Could hardly enter the music room for sound of low mammalian mooing. Ghastly racket. Much relieved thence to discover that most of them were nought but another racket altogether - goodly number of these things turned out to be nothing more than some sly ferret of a fellow playing around with his synthesiser and other electronic gizmos, then flogging the resultant and fraudulent cacophony to the green and gullible for a tenner or more.

Back to it though. Why are we two old clerical salts so bellowing like despairing beasts, so pained as to cry out in our deep, mutual and near harmonic distress? 'Tis - in short - this. Bish Tom's letter has set forth a proposal for an alliance - possibly merger even - with the cold-hearted, clammy-handed Methodists!

A veritable slur you may well say, should you happen to be a warm and cuddly Sectarian. All I can say on the score is that you may exist, but I have never met you and, having happily lived without that pleasure thus long and far, can well manage without changing habits of a lifetime at this late - near twilight - hour thank you very much.

Tom's thesis is this: alone we cannot withstand the dark satanic forces that surround us, but together we may. With him on the first analytical bit - that Old Stan is alive and sadly all too well in our midst is plain for all to see who would see it. But on part the second - what proposal follows from the proposition as expounded - then I cannot have it so.

No good talking to me about 'transitional arrangements', 'commonalities of faith' or even 'shared modalities' whatsoever on God's good earth that one might mean. (Potts being kindly avers it may have something to do with Gregorian chant. I, though, maintain it to be utter hog-wash.) Church and Chapel do not mix. The centuries have proven it so, history is quite and completely on our side.

Stands, therefore, are to be taken and they shall. All perfectly prepared as requested by my Bish to participate in 'early initiative pre-dialogue discussions', but am also entirely prepared with my final line on the matter: "You worship Him in your way, and I'll worship Him in His. End of."

I do trust that whomsoever 'Dave' has entrusted with the tricky task of chatting to Clegg's chaps can bear that necessary and precious thought in mind. Where is Lord Tebbit when you need him? Kicking some defenceless dragon's arse it seems.

'Dear Colleagues in Christ...' A Bishop Writes.

Hardly has the ring of a Saint Paul does it?

He knew how to begin any letter with due mind-concentrating thunder. If you are not familiar with his many and varied salutations - 'tough love' oft the theme of the thing - then check your Corinthians or your Romans or your Ephesians. "I, Paul on a mission. You, call yourself a church? God help the lot of you!" - more or less sums up the general approach.

'Was that the post?' 'I'll get it.' 'Anything for me?' 'Couple of bills and one from Paul.' 'Crikey, summons the brethren. I'll be with you in a minute, just need the loo.' - You can readily picture the very and nervy scene.

The modern Bishop, sadly perhaps, is constrained to be more circumspect. He may have the passion - the rhetorical power even - of the Great Apostle, yet he must temper his words with more mercy than he might wish. No 'Regional Diversity Commissions' in Paul's day; none of your 'All Aboard! - a national strategy for inclusion' papers to mess with his head or style. Above all no potentially looming Employment Tribunal should a modern day cleric take it into his or her head to claim that he or, indeed, she has been 'harassed' for being hauled over any burning coals for failing to deliver on some pointless 'attendance target' - what we old folk would still tend to call a congregation.

But a Bishop so constrained is a man deeply irked. When there's a boot to be stuck in to a recalcitrant rump, when muscular Christianity urges a swift and sharp body blow, yet but a soft 'Ahem...' is all that is permitted; then it must and does gall a man's guts so. ('Internalising the anger' is, I believe, the modern lingo. Does sound quite as nasty as it ought.)

Don't get me wrong. Not all Bishops are, as dear E M Forster would have it, 'telegrams and anger'. Many rather - at least in the beginning - are perfectly kindly and dear souls. We are not talking here necessarily a sentimental character or a drippy disposition - thank Goodness - but the burning fire of a belief that inspires a radiance of regard for others. ('Love Thy Neighbour' - that sort of thing. You must have come across it.)

I indeed count myself lucky never to have had to serve under one of those relentlessly cheerful happy-clappy coves, who irk as much for their implacable happiness as by their intolerable clappiness. Was it not poor Fr. Benjamin 'Dizzy' Rayleigh who used to receive notes from his mad-as-any-hatter Bish 'Call Me Dave' that began 'Dear Team Jesus'? That would be beyond any enduring. Was even indeed - three good vicars went over to Rome by day's end and two more later fled with the parish coffers to some dodgy ashram in Potters Bar.

So I know where largely I am with our own Bish Tom: made of stern stuff and self-taught to be sterner, generally if not universally straight as a die, eye for the main chance naturally yet pretty hopeless at seriously deviant politicking as he does so blush when he lies - all within reasonable and manageable bounds. (If Mrs Bish can live with that then so can I.)

All that being so, I am much like any a Roman or a Corinthian or indeed an Ephesian - you see the handwriting, you read the superscription and you know what's coming next.  When, then, I am a 'Colleague' it is a clear call to consolidated arms on behalf of the collective party. Some external threat has been perceived and we are to stand together united in the face of some darkening force.

Fortunately Bish Tom does have quite a knack of spotting an ill-wind about to blow before most of us have felt a stirring of even a chilly breeze. A necessary charism if you are given to sounding the trumpet of alarm - troops quickly wearing down and out should such clarion calls prove too often false.

But what then is the dire matter so presently told you reasonably wish to know. I cannot in truth yet tell, as I haven't read the letter beyond its all-revealing greeting. Darn it all, it is Sunday, a parson needs his rest too. Whatever it is can surely wait a day or so. Much like the Government. We seem to be jogging along without one quite well, thank you kindly; so why stir the pot when it is nicely simmering by itself?

Let us all then recall the ever wise words of the late, dear Duke of Devonshire who, whenever faced with a decision, would listen to all the pros and cons of acting before gently sighing 'Much better not'. Wonder how Saint Paul would have reacted had he received such a reply: Letter of the Romans to Paul - 'Hi, got urs ta. Chill! On hole no. OK? CU! x.' Not well one quite imagines.

"Alas Poor Gordon...

…I knew him." A bit anyway. Certainly not well.

Always did think that Mr Brown’s skull would make a fine Yorick. All in good time of course; not seeking to haste his mortal as well as his political death you must understand. Rough and knobbly I rather assume the phrenologists will in due season be finding it, quite the thing for an Elizabethan working man.

Well yes, all right, more strictly a semi-professional stand-up comic, roped in to any a court banquet to take the guests’ minds off the ropey meat, plus the ever present hanging rope should His High and Mightiness fancy a spot of light courtier culling. (You think modern politics are rough? Try the Tudors.)

But let us not be waylaid by any impossible image of Our Gordon as a man given to - let alone giving to many - much mirth. Our point is merely this: whenever some smooth shaped skull is shipped in to bear the silent part of Yorick, I do so wish to cry out how wrong they have it there on stage. We have indeed, it can be owned, some family previous on this, for it was none other than great-great Uncle Griswold who so famously, in Victorian times, attempted to set Othello right to the error of his ways with some sound, shouted advice from the stalls.

This is, of course, where it all went so hideously wrong for us with Mr Brown’s predecessor, that slippery-skinned snake-oil salesman of a fellow Tony Blair. Yes that’s the one – the chap we all thought looked and sounded so utterly plausible, a man in whom much trust could and should be placed. We were, so many of us, utterly fooled into believing in him; believing in his integrity, his passion, his commitment. (How could we have been so stupid?)

That Blair skull I bet is as silky as a soap-bubble. Fleas could ice skate his pearly pate in perfect peace. But when we saw through the transparency of his lies, treachery and deceit; as Isaac we yearned for a hairy not a smooth man. Brown clearly was that man it seemed. Out with the grinning buffoon and in with the granite-hewn troll – pretty pug-ugly it must be said and, quite in his favour, a veritable bruiser. ‘Psychologically flawed’ even sounded rather wonderfully attractive, all growly and grisly in a right and proper way.

‘Son of the manse’ integrity too – bit boring if stuck with it in a lift, but the sort of solidity perfectly handy when dealing with those beastly Brussels’ charlatans.

Ghastly cliché that ‘manse’ ‘son’ malarkey, of course, and believe me absolutely no guarantee of any moral probity whatsoever. Nonetheless we wanted to believe in a different idol and so we did. Out with that sweet and nasty – H thinks evil but I’ll settle for seriously sinning – Tony Blair and in with the really, really nice troll that is Brown. Wrong again. Should know by now and by scripture that idolatry gets you nowhere – or rather it takes you quite to a bad, bad place you don’t want to be.

And so it has transpired. ‘Big Bully Broon’ has proven to be quite as mendacious, as harmful and as downright dangerous as ‘Pants on Fire Liar Blair’. Exposition is unnecessary. Poor Mrs Duffy – ‘that woman’ she, the lady and he no gentleman, said hurt far more than being called a bigot – must stand as sign, symbol and signifier of all the stalinistic contempt with which we all have been held by the most commanding and controlling Government in recent times. Bad commands too for being stupid. Being bossed is bad enough – we all have our Bishops to bear – but being bossed by a numbskull is galling beyond enduring.

There really then you have it. Brown is after all a numbskull and nothing more. Alas poor Yorick again, but no jest even finite and nothing left to fancy.

So exit Brown - pursued by a bear would be nice – and enter Milords Cameron and Clegg:

“I rather would entreat thy company to form the wonders of political power, than living dully sluggardised at home in perpetual opposition…”

‘Two Gentlemen of Whitehall’ then shall have its run it seems. To rave or to rancid reviews? We shall see. (“O That Shakespeherian Rag” as that nice Mr Eliot so wisely and wittily would have it.)

'More Gin, Vicar?'

Should a priest been seen to drink? Best on the whole, certainly, not to be seen to be drunk. One thinks of poor Canon ‘Bottle’ Topps whose commitment to the sauce was the stuff of legend, before he was needed to be shipped off to the funny-farm friary after mistaking a funeral for a wedding. (‘On this joyous occasion…’ is absolutely not the way to open proceedings when the recently and much mourned departed is but some ten feet in front of one in a perfectly visible coffin.)

Quite why and how dear Bottle’s admiration of a decent sherry before dinner as a seminarian turned into a raging thirst for jarfuls of whisky at all and any times of day or night, one simply does not know; though those who are more familiar than I with Mrs Canon Topps have been seen to tip the occasional nod and wink in that marital direction.

A kindly parish – they are legion – can be a pretty safe place on which to float this particular boat if needs be. ‘Vicar’s a bit poorly today’ will be a discreet local code for ‘The sot’s too pissed to give out the prizes at Speech Day’, or whatever non-liturgical affair he is unable to attend. (A compassionate curate – they are far fewer – willing to step in at a moment’s notice when the Mass itself is at risk of a no-show, is a must-have for the more strictly clerical duties.)

Some parishioners will, indeed, be more empathetic than sympathetic to a drinking priest, happy to have some – as it were – bibendur applied to their own predilection for the booze. That, though, is not an argument one should allow to be fostered; less regarding that particular form of camaraderie than when used as any argument in favour of shepherd being as and at one with his flock.

‘How can a priest understand family life if he has no family himself?’ they foolishly cry. I shall never be a hangman and pray God I shall never be in need of a hanging; yet I must have power and authority to minister to both should either come my way in need of spiritual help and healing. No, the very notion of a man of God having to be also a man of the people is perfect tish and tosh all round, dangerous nonsense indeed.

Taking but this one case – to drink or not to drink – as the question in hand, one simply cannot have the pleasing of everyone. Be a hearty toper and there will be those whose skirts can very nearly be heard the breadth of the county being drawn in, in disgust and dismay both. Be, on the other hand, as dry as a churchyard bone and you’ll lose the majority of folk who don’t much care for any sense that their priest has it in for them for being beerfully cheerful.

Be all that as it may, I am more than content to hold a traditional middle-ground approach to the whole matter. There shall, for example, always be a welcoming bottle of a good malt waiting for anyone who comes calling at the Rectory door, and in the absence of such a guest then the putative host is more than happy to partake of a couple of thick fingers of the stuff himself of a solitary evening.

That, over time, those measuring fingers have grown somewhat fatter is a matter of some record. (H for one has it striped down, which is of consequence as merits no telling.) Has one even grown closer to having to take more the equine route: to begin to consider things by the whole hand not merely the digit per se? That the question may be asked rightly infers that it could be answered in the affirmative. But if so then be so. A man’s a man for all that, one avers.

Teeth-sucking therapists and other interfering busybodies may squeak ‘Fellow’s in denial’ ‘til the stars fall, but I shall not be so falsely accused or perniciously judged. Nothing there but passing fad and fashion as best I can see it, certainly as applying to the clergy.

Of a time the hunting parson was quite the thing; now of course as much inhibited by secular disapprobation as by lawful prohibition. That same fellow, having counted the hounds out and counted them back in again, would later be found merrily pulling on his corn-cob pipe - stuffed with smuggled baccy - and washed down with a mug of hot brandy, itself similarly perfectly lacking any regulatory paperwork from the dread Revenue and/or Customs.

One must be careful not to overstep the bounds of required clerical decorum here, but one also must be excused to some forgiving degree that living, as one now is, by the riverside in a house where once smugglers dwelt and carried on their knavish trade, one is far more at present pro- not anti- the whole Kipling ‘waking at midnight to the sound of passing horses with no desire to enquire further as to illicit purpose’ thing. Indeed one could not help but admire - at a safe distance admittedly – the legend on the t-shirt of the fellow at the bar yester evening: ‘I hate people who take drugs – police and customs officers’. Naughty but nice one will permit oneself to say.

This then the libertarian mood of the moment, it somewhat heavily jarred with the horrid ‘nanny state’ mentality prevailing down at the local slaughter-house, aka a thoroughly modern and deadly dangerous NHS hospital. Having only popped in as per for some routine reassurance from one’s ever-delightful oncologist, one was perhaps off one’s guard when waylaid by a beaming nurse with a clipboard. (On reflection, that should have been the clue: a bedpan, a thermometer or a cabinet stuffed with healing medicines are proper accessories for a nurse, not a manager’s badge of shame.)

‘We’re just doing a little survey Rector, could you spare a moment or two?’ ‘Little survey’ – ha indeed! More pointless ‘customer feedback’ and useless ‘raw data’ to feed the ever-gaping maw of central command and control. One could at once spot this of course, but ‘tis one of the perils of the clerical classes that we are not permitted – as any other are – to be seen to snub any beaming young nurse.

‘We just want to ask people about their drinking habits.’ Foolish parson should have bolted like any mare when affrighted by its own shadow, not dived on in like some over-confident contestant on ‘Mastermind’ – how one misses dear Magnus – invited to expound on his specialist subject.

First question was a blinder, in the sense that one was totally bemused and baffled by it. ‘How many units of alcohol do you drink in a week?’ Well what, precisely, is a ‘unit of alcohol’ one could only in truth respond. A pint, a glass – a bottle even – a ‘say when’, a ‘make that a large one if you would George’ are all perfectly familiar measures for drinks; but no, a ‘unit’ has no meaning in the lexicon of life as lived. A slight dimming of the young chit’s beam at that I fear, as she herself feared she didn’t actually know and had hoped that I would. (Clearly some work then yet to be done on the pre-survey briefing phase of the whole operation.)

From not terribly good to awfully rather poor I fear the session went. That the entire information exchange was just that – a list of preset questions from which there could be no deviation, nor to which could there be anything supplementary added – perfectly ill-fitted the subject to hand. If one is going to open up on such sensitive and revealing matters such as mornings one could not quite recall the night before, or mornings when one has – one hasn’t – reached for more drink, or unexplained personal injuries, or – the killer – regrets for actions taken under the influence; if then all that deep stuff is up for debate, it is only right and proper that one is not utterly restricted and constrained in answering to ‘Never’ or ‘Sometimes’ or ‘Frequently’.

‘Well, there was that time I nicked Papa’s car as a junior and bashed it into the Colonel’s front wall. Caused quite a stink I can tell you.’ Such nostalgic confessing of youthful indiscretions cannot be done any justice this short, sharp way. Reverting to the ‘Mastermind’ analogy: to be started is not then at once to be stopped dead in one’s tracks. Or rather it shouldn’t be, though it was regretfully.

A certain temptation began to grow to be subversive. ‘But does not everyone consume seven bottles of whiskey between sunrise and the setting of the same?’ Or better still, ‘I’ve killed before you know.’ (That last a splendid tip from a delightful visiting Mexican priest many years back: ‘If ever you are stuck with a complete bore at a party, just drop in to the conversation that you have a history of homicide and you’ll at once be set free.’ And who said liberation theology is complete pants eh?) Tempted, but not succumbing.

Less in truth out of consideration for the dignity of the nursing profession, more a creeping unease about the future safeguarding of one’s answers; wafty reassurances that ‘all data will be treated in strict confidence’ cutting not a stem of mustard plant at this point.

My entire stance on this matter is that no sooner is any piece of info or gen entered into a computer, than it at once becomes completely available to the entire wide world of web. Whether by malice, by design or by simple human mishap, once in it will eventually out is my unswervable view. This just in general; regarding the NHS in particular, one knows that it has no more capacity to maintain confidentiality within than a sieve to bail a boat without.

The outcome was as unsatisfactory as the process or the content. ‘You’ve scored 14, Rector. Two more and I would have had to refer you to a specialist physician in the sphere of substance abuse,’ were Nanny Nursey’s concluding remarks. Refer all you like I’ll be making my own choices in the matter was my silent riposte, tempered in part by the, equally unspoken, reflection that one had categorically downplayed some aspects of some of the answers as given. The odd ‘Frequently’ metamorphosing into the ‘Sometimes’, or the ‘Who hasn’t?’ emerging as the ‘What me?’ That sort of thing.

All in all a tricky, awkward and an upsetting occasion sufficient to drive any clergyman to further drink. More gin anyone?

Losing Streak...

..."That'll be 95 pence Rector." Only it wasn't. Having carefully counted out the required coinage for the purchase, it would appear that one had only handed over a mere 80p, being the 15p light of the full amount. Could have been deuced awkward had suspicion arisen as to any attempt to defraud the place. Not, fortunately, with dear Mavis - purveyor of bread, milk and other light groceries to the parish - who has a delightfully old-fashioned regard for and trust in the clergy.

Imagine though the frightful embarrassment had one been in some foreign place - any local town standing for the purpose - unknown and untested. Might not the cry have gone up: 'Oi, Derek. Over here smartish. We've got some scoundrel pretending he's holy and all with even that fake dog-collar malarkey. Trying to slip out a good three shillings short. You hold the door, I'll be phoning Sergeant Hawkins this very minute. You stand still you cove!' (That last to me of course. The sort of sad exchange that does no doubt occur throughout the working day of any a crime-ridden town.)

But though spared any difficult explanation of culpability in failing to make, in effect, two and two a round, wholesome four; though not in that sense any guilt obtaining, wasn't it horrid, at a cognitive if not criminal level, to discover - and not for the first time recently, which is telling - that such a simple arithmetical calculation appeared to have been a non-starter?

Could it be the river air, you ask? Or you might if you had insight into the calm and soothing torpor that riverside life engenders. Slow up and slow down runs the tide, life passing by thence back again. No mind or spirit should or could resist this easeful rhythm, nor does mine indeed. A goodly thing no doubt, restorative and reviving in its way, but yet not entirely fitting for the active parson about the place.

The more contemplative cove – a decent hairy Camoldolese hermit say – could very reasonably aver it more vocational than recreational and not be challenged. But then he does not have parochial accounts to complete before Wednesday next, or the impending emotional meltdown of a neighbouring family double-whammied by severe illness on top of a redundancy all in the same week; or further a mid-Lenten homily to bash out (theme – ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’) with half an eye on the possibility that the Archdeacon might just happen to drop in for Holy Communion Sunday coming.

Been doing a lot of ‘just dropping in’ has Derek of late. Rumours abounding as to why, the most charitable of which being that he’s rather keen, at present, to show to Bish Tom how useful and ‘cost effective’ he is to the diocese in these economically straightened times of ours. (A reasonable personal goal one must admit, not least for someone who can be called – not by me of course – a ‘waste of a good cassock’. Pity though he cannot find a less intrusive way of making the same point.)

Anyway, these are not the sorts of burdens with which our aforementioned hairy and heaven-bound hermit must wrestle. Sharp minds are necessary to pull off - with what success one might - the more variant and vibrant mix of the active life, having far more of an eye on the present godly earth than the eternal paradise. Metaphorically speaking, one could say the difference between crossing a busy road and an open field. Other than the occasional cowpat, there is little in the latter that need detain the gaze downward, freeing mind and spirit to soar as the bird. Try that on the A127 and you’re hamburger pronto.

Keeping then calm and carrying indeed on are never going to be sufficient admonishment for the priest of any parish, howsoever rurally remote and relaxed it might – as ours is – be. Getting a grip and bucking up, along with daily doses of cracking on, are quite more the thing. Hence a certain deep concern that, whatsoever the cause of the current synaptic siesta, not being up to the job of counting to ninety-five in coin of the realm is not a happy sign or portent.

If, though, it had been but that one moment of mental dereliction I should not be so bothered or baffled. One accidental lapse permitted, but there is sadly more – or rather perhaps less.

The inner circle will know me to be fond of the occasional game of cards. (Bish Tom probably has a file on the matter courtesy of Derek’s nosing about, but if he does he also has the decency to keep QT on the matter.) Not so frequent a frequenter of the green baize has one been of latter years. H does not approve – nor why should she? – of a habit that has the more depleted the family holdings than added to its assets over the years, it has to be admitted.

Even H, however, was not displeased when the other month I was able happily to inform her that I had – for old times’ sake really – been gifted a free seat at a stonking great tournament with a cash prize pool of not a dime short of 1 million dollars! Even the most severe cost-benefit analysis could find nothing to disapprove of those racing odds: nothing to pay for and everything to play for. Hot stuff indeed and duly marked down in the diary.

Only it wasn’t. The game was real enough all right – one is ever careful as one must be of online scams – just, sad to report, my recollection of the timing of the thing turned out to be utterly duff. Had it clearly pencilled in for next Sunday night following - with Curate Charlie striped down for Evensong, leaving the way to the table entirely free of any liturgical obstacle. A smart enough move, but based on an entirely false premise – the game was last night not a week hence.

Discovered this through utter accident, logging casually on thence noting to one’s absolute horror that one was three hours late in arriving – not seven days early – one’s opening pile of chips had been blinded to next to zero and not a hope in heaven – or the other place – of making any a decent fist of it. Four or five desultory hands, then busted out with K-10 suited against K-3 off - and a 3 duly turning up on the turn to add final insult to self-inflicted injury.

Now this is no little cheese we have here. It is not the missed opportunity to earn sufficient for a longish sabbatical that rankles, it is the unfathomable lapse of memory and mind that somehow saw one making a mess of even being there on time. Think of the song: ‘I’m getting married in the morning, ding dong etc…’ Wretched piece we’ll admit, quite teeth on edge putting all round, but let it stand as a comparator. Imagine that came the response ‘No, actually you were supposed to have been in Church getting hitched last weekend. You appear to have gotten the dates muddled.’

It’s not going to happen is it? These sorts of errors cannot occur can they? There are some things just so important in life that one could not possibly mistake the very timing of them. Well they can and they have. My losing streak just went critical. Steps will have to be taken, ever so soon as I can recall where I last saw them.

Moving On: Part The Second

"Someone has hacked into my account..." A scary proposition, raising spectres of hard-earned funds being siphoned-off by sneaky coves too lazy and too clever to work for their own living.

Context here, though, is a strong signifier. Were I to say it, 'twould be true; when, however, it is young E the utterer one knows at once, by parental instinct, that this is merely late-teenage code for 'I have foolishly overspent, dearest Papa, and could you lend me a couple o' hundred until pay day, or else I starve and it be on your conscience forever?' ('Lend' being, naturally, a further juvenile code for 'give freely with no expectation of any return at any time, ever'.)

In the old dispensation the matter would have easily been resolved. 'Hie thee to thy room at once child, Mama will summons you when supper is served, and if your footloose ways vis-à-vis personal cashflow means you are effectively self-grounded, with no socialising or spending, until the end of the month, then take it as being but a tough, salutary and necessary lesson in life's funny ways.' Simple Micawber principle of finance, with which we are all so familiar - in theory at least if not quite in practice. (Know ye it not? Then look it up at once, 'ere you and yours are doomed to eternal penury.)

Dispensations being rather new than old, the remedy must shift to another plane altogether. A few fiddles with the - quite old - Internet banking malarkey and the required funds are telegraphed over instanter. (The alternative of a plain 'No' not being a sustainable option. Feet perhaps should be firmly put and kept down, strangely though they never are. It is, after all, a parent thing.)

Why not - you reasonably ask - if an exchange of funds is required the traditional 'hand in the pocket, hand over the cash in readies' as per the perennial norm of these things? Not a goer any longer, sad - in its way - to report. For we are here and E is there, quite beyond the reach of an outstretched fatherly arm, even one heavily baited with cash. How, one has to ask, has it come to this, that a short moment or two ago E was but a literal babe at home and in arms, and yet now she is so grown and grown up to be living in her 'own flat'? (The quotation being yet another signifier that we, of course, are essentially paying for the whole thing.)

Time it is indeed that has done the deed alone and unaided. Blink only - it seems - and you have missed it. Whoosh quite they go: babe, infant, child, adolescent then finally grown and gone all in a trice. Takes some digesting that does: the bare and bereft nest sans fledgling. All as nature intends, one does not wish to cling - well yes of course one does ever so - and thus, bracing oneself, one waves toodle-pip, fond farewell, crying 'take good care and don't forget to text', as the next generation legs it down the road towards independence and freedom.

Does one then lose all purpose in living now that the daily nurturing round is done? Can seem that way at times. Opportunity now there may well be to boogie on down to some hot night-spot safe in the knowledge that one will not be upbraided for sad dad dancing; a chance given but not taken. Mates round for a three-day poker-fest another possibility, with no innocent child to be spared the exposure to such wanton moral turpitude. Can't really see that happening either. Time perhaps to break out the hash-stash, now that the 'do as I say not as you observe me to do' imprecation has lost its imperative? Hardly appeals at all, possibly strange to discover.

Jump on a passing traveller's caravan, the fortuitous life of the raggle-taggle gypsy-o? That I own would be a belter. Would have, though, to be a wi-fied caravan for the next 'I've been hacked' call. Wish only I'd had that excuse with the Palladian parents. Sounds all so plausible don't it? Not to the ever-doting but not yet daft Papa it don't!

Moving On: Part The First...

...It was - as ever it were - H who had the final, decisive say in the matter.

For years now she and I have bewailed the twin dolours of Rectory life: the damp and the expense. A huge - attractive yes to the passer-by - pile, built in centuries when both servants and coal were cheap and readily to hand; a fitting dwelling indeed for a parson plus spouse and the sharp side of ten children, as so oft could be the Victorian norm. Imposing too, silently proclaiming the might and majesty of the Church: very nearly a sacramental even - not that Low Church ever much cared for such things you'll accept.

Do not think that I have not enjoyed the essential anachronism of trying to make decently fit the pint of a much reduced modern familial and ecclesial life into the gallon pot of one's predecessors. (You will know me well enough indeed to spot that such a dissonance is quite my tune.) But such sentimentality cannot thrive in the harsh reality of hard choices - heat the damn thing to stay warm and dry, and go bust; or avoid penury at the cost of rising damp in the lower limbs and frostbite in any one of several extremities.

Ours has not been an uncommon plight - you will find any number of Facebook groups dedicated to the sad lot of the modern rural cleric - but of late it has become a matter more exigently pressing. "New roof Rector, that's what you need," sighed Edmund the builder. Not merely slates and so forth, it seemed, for the very timbers were shot; the whole thing had to come off and to be begun quite at the absolute beginning. "New ceilings at the very least upstairs" - more deep sighing - "might hap re-plastering throughout." (A sigh to break an angel's heart, that last.)

The sighs of course coming from the depth of a sad soul seeing a nice big juicy earner dangled before him, then only for it to be snatched away by the tight-fisted Dean of the Diocese who would - it is fondly believed by many - be quite as happy to have his clergy camp under canvas as pay to see them properly housed.

Edmund though now has his lucrative contract and we our new, albeit temporary, gaff. Age of miracles not over then? Well, yes and not quite so. All H's doing, as per previous intro. My modest proposal had been to begin to suggest opening discussions with the Dean about the options to be considered in advance of preparatory thinking for initial negotiations about terms of reference for a generalised debate...etc., etc.

Weak, all-in-all, you'll be keen to chastise, but then you don't know - or have to work under - the Dean. (Mickey Rourke wanted to play him in the movie, but has been dismissed as 'far too soft a pussy-cat' for the role. That will give you some insight, I trust, into the man and his ways.)

No mustard though cuts our Dean with H. On to the fellow the morning following receipt of final Edmund estimate. Not privileged to be party to the conflab, merely informed of the outcome. "You know that fine old place down by the river I've always had my eye on? The one that's been empty since Canon 'Pewter' Potts's widow passed over and the Diocese couldn't find the right tenant? Well, it's ours now for the duration of the Rectory re-build. We begin the move tomorrow. Now keep up, buck up, and pick your jaw off the ground we've shedloads to accomplish."

Been far too busy with the above accomplishments to check with H - let alone communicate to any other - just how this seeming miracle was managed. The Dean agreeing not only to shell-out nine-tenths of his annual repair budget on but our one Rectory, but also to blow the entire contingency fund on setting us up in near luxury for the duration? (If my fellow clergy are not mad with envy at present, it is merely that they have not yet passed beyond the utterly incredulous, it-cannot-be-so, we-are-in-total-denial, grieving phase.)

Did H resort to blackmail? Dare I say, the thought has crossed the reluctant mind. Was there some arcane knowledge of the fellow - privy only to every parson's wife - about his past or present predilections, that might be the hook on which he could be landed, at will, by mere hint of exposure?

Very possibly so - the whole vulnerable hidden skeleton thing, not the blackmail as such - but it was, it seems, a far more straight and straight-forward direct attack by which H threw down the walls of deanery fiscal caution. "I merely told Derek that if we didn't get our complete way, you would convert to Orthodoxy and ship off to Greece for a fine life of sun, sea and sanctity, leaving a hole in the diocesan register of priests-about-the-place not easily filled."

Enough of a threat, it transpires, for Derek to capitulate, orders for roofs to be re-made and - near enough - hang the cost given, whilst the Palladian tribe has been re-homed in rather quite a wonderful way. More on the doing of that for later. Let it here suffice that should any of my vast acquaintance be moved - in say the next ten years or so at least - to opine that change and rest are an equivalent, they will feel the blows of my disagreement with the stupid remark about their person.

Au contraire, it is my intention to track down and shake warmly by the hand whomsoever it was who first deduced and demonstrated that moving house is in the top three of all of life's most stressful events - a list that includes death and any one of the five biblical plagues, so some pretty stiff competition. Just as well then, all in all, that we are merely moving to another part of the parish and not to a foreign country. Mind you, Greek Orthodoxy has always appealed. So has the Mediterranean life. A long, long way from the misty, murky riverside of 'down-bank' Woldean living. More to come...

Soup and Sanctuary, Sir?

You can see at once the tactical flaw. It's one thing, when you are struggling on foot home at night through the freshly-fallen snow beyond your boot tops, to be hailed by two pukka, uniformed, police officers with offers of a warm and safe haven with fresh-made soup attached. "Up at the monastery Sir. Follow the drive to the top of the hill and Father Prior will greet you with a hot mug of finest fresh-made, plus the offer of a bed for the night." Just the thing if you've had to abandon your car in the sudden storm, are miles from home and have nowt but a wailing, scared young family for company.

Quite though another thing altogether, when the very same offer is being made by two anonymous strangers in mufti - with not a badge of officialdom between them - pointing you off the lawful, if impassable, Queen's highway towards a darkened path and an uncertain future.

The night had begun well enough. There we were 'proceeding in a westerly direction' down the nave, having said good night both to the living Lord and to Victor in his coffin, when we were apprehended of a sudden by the aforementioned officers of the law with a proposition that we, in Christian charity, could not reasonably decline.

"Folk are stranded by the shedload, good Fathers. Abandoned cars line the streets, roads and one or two of your hedgerows. You may be holy souls given over to adoration of God alone, but even you unworldly types must have noticed the snow that has pelted down these past hours. We were wondering if we could send some needy folk your way for hot soup and safe sanctuary from the savage storm?"

Put thus, how indeed could there be any refusal? Enormous gaff the monastery, could hold two hundred plus and still leave room for the chickens. Not the normal routine for a contemplative order, strictly enclosed, with an impending funeral on its hands and about to go to bed. But normal in no way were the circs. Three hours previous, a light shower of wet slush. Now though, a wipe-out blizzard and nine inches or more of the white stuff lay all around. Quite on the hop it had taken all it seems.

The sensible ones had parked their cars by the side of the road to consider their options. The more foolish had taken a run at the hill, simply sliding to a halt much like the old Duke of York cove - neither up nor down.

Now, if only dear old Victor had not upped and died he would have been in his element bustling about and around, sorting the logistics; ordering, listing then delegating the tasks, and generally getting to grips with the situation as arisen. His only regret, probably, would have been that the solving of the problem did not necessarily require immediate banging nails into planks of timber in order to build something on the spot. (No doubt, though, he would have taken the blow on the chin and set aside the splendid notion of knocking-up a new twenty-four bed guest wing as something for the morning.)

The soup, of course, was the key note of the thing, much favourably commented on by the temporary refugees. (A little vegetable and tomato number I conjured from the limited ingredients on offer.) That though accomplished, it was someone's bright idea - mine I fear - to relieve the two officers of the law for a short respite from the storm. "Let them warm up a tad, as they've clearly got an all-nighter on their hands, and two of us can go down the bottom of the drive in order to shepherd the lost sheep towards sanctuary.

No sooner said than done. No sooner done than the two freezing police constables were thawing out by the monastery pipes. No sooner, though, than their replacements in place, when passing trade slackens off no end. Made their excuses and fled (to the extent that anyone can flee through heavy snow) about summed up the response to our offer of hospitality. Marty Feldman reprising his 'Young Frankenstein' Igor role would have had more success than we did. "Walk this way." "Why of course." (If you haven't seen the film then you'll not get the reference, but if you've not seen the film you shouldn't be allowed out after dark anyway.)

Realisation rapidly dawning, roles once more reversed, the interrupted flow was resumed. Final score on the door something like: one extensive Eastern European family with minimal English, less luggage and a dazed looking toddler; five or so single adults of both genders, who may or who may have thought that bedding down with the monks was the Christmas present they'd always wanted but never dared ask Santa for; an upright and somewhat puzzled old gentleman who could well have caught his death of cold in his benighted car; a mother with a teenage daughter whose happy demeanour and sparkling good looks may well have given a wobble to a celibate vocation or two, plus a young son - the spitting image of dear Nick Drake - who looked totally terrified when it was jestingly suggested that he was ideal monastery fodder and shouldn't be allowed to leave in the morning; and two terribly humane constables who were destined to freeze their butts off at least 'til dawn and beyond.

Just two of the monks were caught up in the turmoil, the rest having retired to their rest. But not quite so though, for it is the monastic tradition to keep watch during that night with a deceased brethren who is awaiting his burial the day following. Hour by hour, one monk would replace another to kneel in prayer in the dark - and that night freezing - church beside the coffin. Theirs the more silent, the hidden and the traditional monastic witness than our exigent banging about finding broth and beds for the temporarily stranded.

Martha and Mary, both, we were then in our respective ways. Martha's endeavours will merit a proper, if transient, headline or two in the local press - along with many others who gave aid and succour that bitter night. Mary's witness won't get a mention, except here and in Heaven.

Snakes and Ladders...

...was in deep convo the other day with dear Doc P. - regional champion cancer-spotter you may recall - about how this latest wrestling-bout with the dragon of malignancy is affecting the man qua whole man. That it was indeed I, not he, who introduced the topic as a subject for debate and reflection may give some clue as to the overall drift of the thing. Downward, somewhat in the manner of Our Hero sliding ever faster towards the edge of the abyss with nowt but some pretty ravaged fingernails between himself and oblivion. That sort of thing.

Anyway, so having established that patches were, on the whole, more sticky than not, we were chewing the clinical cud for options. "Large single malt, taken regularly day and night." Sadly, no, that was not his prescription, but rather my intimation of current self-selected remedial activity.

Heads being duly shaken at this, we further considered our choices. Being one of these robust evidence-based coves, Doc P's next question was indeed a belter. "You've had a rocky time or two in the past. Anything then of help?" Why yes, surely, the nation's favourite had proved its worth in times gone by, so let's give it another go.

"But you haven't had the nation's favourite before." That from a swift yet eager scanning of the medical notes as given. How very strange, these notes are normally spot on. But indeed one has had this very pick-me-up before to good effect, and no computer screen was to tell me otherwise.

All points above being put to the fellow, we seemed at first to have hit an impasse. "Oh no you haven't." "Oh yes I have." (Well it is pantomime season after all.) Then came the realisation and the required resolution. "Must have been with your previous GP, not this surgery." Quite.

True enough absolutely indeed. Some ten years back one had been pretty down and was being held up, to a not inconsiderable extent, by this very favourite of the nation. When, out of the blue, cancer of a singularly nasty aspect hoving into view, more or less at a stroke, other blues simply vanished as so much sea mist before a piercing tropical sun. Peculiar or what?

Not really so surprising. Nothing indeed like the prospect of being hanged for concentrating the mind on how jolly after all can be this vale of tears. Life? Pretty grim at times, but certainly beats the alternative. Cancer in, depression out. That about nutshells it for the general viewing public.

But aren't we such fickle creatures? This time around, there one was on the whole sailing along tolerably well - if somewhat tacking hard against a sharpish head-wind - when whamo one is hit amidships by another monster of the deep and of a sudden is plunged right back into the glums.

So perhaps it is a contrarian case - wheresoever you happen to be at the time on the snake or the ladder of human contentment, this fell thing scoops you up and dumps you at its nearest opposite. It's a theory in need of some testing. A sample size of two may be insufficient data on which to yea or to nay the hypothesis entirely, but buggered if I'm offering myself for best of three.