Living with Telegraph blogs: my week with a cult

Mark Templer writes:

Mark Templer, former head of the London Church of Christ.

I was recently invited to spend a week at Thompson Towers, the secret London headquarters of Telegraph blogs, a group so authoritarian that it has been accused of being a bullying cult.

The director of the cult, Damian Thompson, presides over a team of sinister people whose job it is to produce propaganda in order to win converts. I met some of these during my visit, but some operate from outside Headquarters: for example Mik "Bluebottle" Wright lives in a Dublin pub, where he bites passers-by in the ankle.

"Tis I, Brokenbottleboy. Waits for audience applause. Not a sausage."

Thompson himself writes propaganda, but, as he was at pains to admit, his intention was not to convert me, simply to bring Blog into my life. "Sometimes I write about Catholic issues: indeed, I have a contact in the Vatican who keeps me fed with the latest gossip - Pope Emeritus Benedict at death's door, Archbishop Mennini poisoned with polonium, Piero Marini to be named Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Arthur Roche to become Archbishop of Westminster, Jimmy Savile to be canonized - and I pass it on. Admittedly, most of what he says is false, but there's no holy smoke without fire, is there?"

Damian Thompson: "Mostly, however, I write about custard."

Some of the Telegraph bloggers are even weirder than Thompson. For example, I met a man they called simply "Delingpole", who spent all his time kicking kittens round the office, and his deadly enemy, an old fat man called "Lean" (evidently an alias), who told me that climate change would cause the polar ice-caps to catch fire and kill us all by 2015 unless we taxed cows, banned foreign holidays, and made it illegal to go to the toilet on Thursdays.

Every time you make a cup of tea a polar bear drowns.

It's been said that the Telegraph bloggers are predominantly Catholic, and that their propaganda is designed to brainwash readers into knocking on Vincent Nichols's door at 3 a.m. demanding to be saved. Far from it! Admittedly, there is Tim Stanley who sometimes writes on Catholic issues, and Cristina Odone who puts forward a variety of irregular opinions, pretending that they are Catholic, but that's about it. After all, there is also Tom Chivers, the token liberal atheist Guardian-reader, who has held a succession of meaningless job-titles, starting with "Assistant Brainwasher", then "Strategic Brainwashing Coordinator", and finally "Vice-Ferret and Brainwashing Executive".

Damian Thompson again, looking distinctly brainwashed.

So for a week I stayed in Thompson Towers, while the Telegraph staff watched old episodes of Are You Being Served? on a giant screen, occasionally taking time off to send each other funny cat pictures on Twitter, or even to churn out another 300 words to confuse their readers. In the end I left, still puzzled, but definitely unbrainwashed and with my sanity intact needle nardle noo f'tang ying-tong iddle I po. I need a lie down.

Rear: James Delingpole, Janet Daley, Toby Young.
Front: Damian Thompson, Jenny McCartney, Benedict Brogan.

Have you tried Eccles's Blogg? Aw, go on! Go on!

A special article in the Daily Telegraph from Damian Thompson.

Eccles has taught me all I know about custard.

Here’s some advice for Kieran Conry, Richard Dawkins, Iain Dale, and Stephen Fry. If you didn’t catch up with Eccles's blogg this week, don’t bother now. You’ll spoil your weekend. On the other hand, everyone else is in for a treat. Forget those tedious Telegraph blogs and read something with genuine spiritual nourishment. As Arthur Conan Doyle would say: Go on. Go on. Go on, go on, GO ON!!!!

Mary Riddell - a poor imitation of Eccles's Anti Moly.

Eccles is at the forefront of modern blogging - and opinion forming. He adopted Cardinal Ouellet as a papal candidate, and soon afterwards Cardinal Belgrano was elected Pope. He criticised Arthur Roche, and this led directly to his promotion to archbishop, with responsibility for closing churches in Rome. He praised Paul Inwood's innovative approach to "Vogon" music, and the old man was sent packing by Bishop Egan.

Star Wars, bagpipes, unicycles - back in fashion since Eccles posted this on Twitter.

Eccles has an ear for music that Van Gogh (and our own bloggers Stephen Hough and James MacMillan) could only envy. Who else would dare to help Christina Rossetti rewrite In the bleak midwinter?

It was quite a nice day,
Not too hot or cold,
They had lovely weather
In the days of old.

Tom Chivers - I gave him a job thinking that he'd write about jelly.

Of course, there are some Telegraph bloggers who are not overshadowed by Eccles. Young Michael "Mi" Wright, is our Tech blogger, who tweets as @brokenteacuplad, and so far Eccles has not yet turned his hand to technology. Also, we've got Gerald Warner, Ed West, Peter Mullen and David Lindsay. Oh, did we lose them? Well, never mind.

Moly (now retired) was a troll that I employed to drive up the hits on my blog.

Eccles is also relatively silent on environmental issues, whereas we have our great double act of Geoffrey Fat and James Upthepole, to tell us (a) the world will burst into flames next week unless we ban all motor cars (b) we're heading for a new Ice Age.

But in general the Telegraph blogs cannot compete with Eccles. His best line of the week? Out go Humanae Vitae and the other fuddy-duddy documents! In comes your own Episcopal Encyclical Fac Rem Tuam (or, since Latin is obviously not "cool", you may just say Do your own thing).

A fan of Eccles wonders why his Oyster card has stopped working.

Which isn't to say that Eccles is always being rude about people. His Eccles Bible Project has now reached the book of 1 Chronicles, and throws new light on the subject of Jizreel, Jishma, Jidbash, and their sister Hazlelponi. Scholars have said that it includes the definitive study of Hazlelponi.

If only Eccles would agree to write for the Telegraph blogs! But he already writes, under various pseudonyms, for the Tablet, Beano, Luton Budgie-Fanciers Gazette, Babes in Custard, and other scholarly publications, so he simply hasn't got the time!

The budgie-fanciers of Luton do not know how lucky they are!