This is me, Eccles

This is me, Eccles
This is me, Eccles

Monday 30 December 2013

Et in terra pax

This has been a very good Christmas season for me, as lots of people with whom I disagreed violently have contacted me to admit that I was right all along. To avoid embarrassment, or people checking my claims, I cannot name any names, but here are some heart-warming messages I have received.

Dawkins the convert

Professor D, who wishes to remain anonymous.

A retired professor at a well-known Oxbridge University (which isn't Cambridge) has e-mailed me to say that after reading my blog he has come to the conclusion that I was right all along, and that atheism is bunk. It is embarrassing for him to come out in public and say this, as he runs a "Foundation for Reason and Science" of which the main purpose is (i) to say how wonderful he is, and (ii) to promote atheism. Still, he is hoping to change the name of his foundation when nobody is looking.

Spot the difference!

I then received a Christmas card from another professor, living somewhere near Roehampton, who also feels that it is egg-on-face time. "How could I have been so wrong when I wrote my book God's Mother, Eve's Advocate?" she asks. "Did I not realise that it was in direct contradiction to all mainstream Christian teaching since the first century?"

Tina recants

It's never too late to make amends.

Another distinguished person who contacted me over Christmas was someone who - to spare his blushes - we shall refer to simply as Paul Mirkwood. "You have opened my eyes to the possible richness of liturgy and music," he told me. "Apparently, there's more to worship than singing 'Alleluia-Moo-Moo'." I have put him in contact with the composer James MacMillan, who thinks that it may not be too late to retrain Paul as a musician.

a deacon's shed

Were sinister plots hatched in this shed?

Of course 2013 was a year in which I was stalked, harassed, calumniated, and generally insulted on Twitter. How I wish I could share with you the fulsome apology I received from a deacon who was to blame for much of this. At 4 a.m. he stood in the street outside my house, yelling, "Eccles, for months I accused you of running dozens of sockpuppets, including Damian Thompson, a lady journalist in Hove, a donkey-breeding teacher in Spain, a midwife, Spock of the Enterprise, Fr Ray Blake, and Fr John Zuhlsdorf. I now realise that I may have exaggerated slightly. Will you ever forgive me?"

St Cyprian

"In Cappella Calvariæ nulla salus."

Of course I forgave the deacon, and no sooner had I done this than my dear brother, the first person ever mentioned on this blog - whose name I will anagrammatise to "Scoob" so that nobody can identify him - grabbed me by the hand and said, "Eccles, I have been considering the words of St Cyprian of Carthage, In Cappella Calvariæ nulla salus ('No Salvation in the Calvary Chapel'), and I now realise that I am not as saved as I thought I was."

Bosco's baptism

"Scoob" is baptised, as a first step to Salvation.

More e-mails flooded into my inbox. A Telegraph journalist (the only clue I shall give this time is the word "custard") apologised for blocking me on Twitter - he said that reading my blog made him realise that his own efforts could never be as spiritually nourishing. Phantom Domains (anag.) you are forgiven.

Sunshine Award

Last, and definitely not least, and this one may even be true: I have been nominated for another award by the great Jessica Hof. I must blog on this separately.

5 comments:

  1. darling eccles, well deserved, and what joy over so many repentant sinners :) xx Jess

    ReplyDelete
  2. I note that among the fulsome apologies you have received, there is no word from OTSOTD, who from 2011 to the present has been accusing the lady journalist from Hove (not just on twitter, but to various catholic media organisations which have employed her) of being any or all of us, and in particular, of being a troll using 23 separate online identities, but whose real-life identity was laughably easy to trace. Perhaps he could sign up for some lessons in Catholicism from your correspondents above. He still has 36 hours left before he deletes his twitter account.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great news, Eccles!

    Glad to see that Advent – which is a penitential season after all – has borne fruit in the conversion of so many from the Diaspora.

    Of course, like New Year’s resolutions, they may not be lasting.

    But, there’s always the confessional…

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well Eccles, last year you got a Lobster, this year you got some Sunshine. Fingers crossed next year you get a nice Chablis and you can enjoy them all together.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Sir,

    As the CEO of Social Media Sheds, I would like to correct you on a minor point of nomenclature. The model shown in your photograph (above the legend "Were sinister plots hatched in this shed?") is not a plotting shed but was in fact designed mainly as a damp and dreary space for Facebook users. If you notice the door, it has a three-hinge arrangement, distinguishing the Facebook shed from the My Space shed, with two hinges. Unlike these models, our Twitter plotting shed - quite popular in the Croydon area - is completely unhinged.

    I hope this clarifies the issue. We are open for orders again after the holiday on January 2nd.

    Yours etc.,
    Arthur Jackson
    Unit 2 Mitcham Industrial Estate

    ReplyDelete