accordion bagpipes clarinet didgeridoo (electronic) organ (electronic) piano fiddle guitar harpischord kazoo recorder spoons tambourine triangle ukelele vibraphone (also known as vibes, but not the good vibes that Pope Francis wants) vuvuzela washboardWe'll start when we reach 32 (a convenient number), or whenever I think we've got all we're going to get.
1. Then Bosis ceased to harden his heart, and said "From now on a new commandment I give unto you: STAY ALERT. Also ye must CONTROL THE VIRUS and SAVE LIVES."
2. And the people were now allowed to leave their dwellings more than once a day, although they must remain at a distance of four cubits from one another.
Bosis and the three commandments.
3. But the Scottites and the Welshites mocked him, saying, "We cannot ask our people to stay alert, for they know not what this means. So we will ask them to stay at home, watching the box that is called Goggle and Magoggle."
4. And it was so.
5. However, the Scottites also told their people that they might go out if they played the bagpipes, thus encouraging their neighbours to stay at a distance of a thousand cubits from them.
6. Now, many years ago, the LORD had placed a rainbow in the sky, as a sign of His Covenant with Man, to show that never again would the world be drowned by waters, not even in the land of Manchester where it raineth every day.
7. But the dwellers in the Cities of the Plain, which are called Elbee and Geetee, had taken the rainbow unto themselves, saying that it was a sign that they would not be destroyed for their wickedness.
8. Then those who worshipped the doctors, the nurses, the hospital accountants and their equality and diversity officers said "Let us also use the rainbow, as a sign of God's favour to us."
This means war!
9. But the people of Elgee and Beetee waxed wroth, saying "The rainbow is sacred unto us, and cannot be stolen by the doctors."
10. "Moreover, ye have cancelled our parades, that are called Pride, in which we are joined by officers of the law, whereby we may explain to the children how wondrous is our lifestyle."
11. Hence the sufferings of the people of Elgee and Beetee were greater than any others known at this time.
12. Meanwhile, the people continued to argue about the meaning of the words "four cubits", and asked Bosis for guidance.
There came an answer.
13. So Bosis spake, saying, "Take up thy bed and walk, for thy bed is four cubits long, unless thou be Og of Bashan."
14. (For, as it is recorded, Og's bedstead was a bedstead of iron. Nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it.)
15. Bosis also suggested that a man might otherwise carry around three cabinets known as fridge, but in the end nobody was strong enough to do this.
16. Then there came a decree from Caesar Agatesus, that all the world should be vaxxed.
Caesar Agatesus, the most powerful man in the world.
17. This Agatesus was a wealthy potentate, who had obtained a vast fortune by selling unto the people windows that would not stay open.
18. And now he had found a strange vixen, with which he claimed to cure all the ills of the world.
19. So Bosis, and his servant Matthew, of the tribe of Hanoch, were deeply troubled, and they thought hard about whether the people of Bri-tain should receive the strange vixen of Agatesus.
Take for example the Tommy Cooper joke: "I bought some pork chops and told the butcher to make them lean. He said, 'Which way?'"
With this joke the late Mr Cooper (99 today) has managed to offend Jews and Muslims (mentioning pork), fat people (mentioning "lean") and people with one leg shorter than the other (the other meaning of "lean"). So watch out for Mohammed Ben Fatwa, the overweight Muslim with a limp!
One man's comedy is another man's tragedy.
The same law has applied to me recently, and here are three examples.
Case 1. Someone on Twitter asks what she should do during the present crisis, if it is impossible to get to Confession.
Witty Eccles reply: Stop sinning.
Audience reaction: Let's be more charitable here, please. Accusing S. of being unable to stop sinning is the height of rudeness.
Well, that went down well!
Case 2. We have the usual St Patrick's Day dispute about whether St Patrick was English, Scottish, Welsh, or something else. Someone says that he was Scottish.
Witty Eccles reply: You're thinking of St Andrew.
Audience reaction: (patiently). No, no, he's the Patron Saint of Scotland. If he was Scottish, his brother Peter would also have been Scottish.
St Andrew relaxes after a hard day's apostling.
Case 3. An American priest (who claims to have a sense of "humor", whatever that may be) tells us that he tried to give up chocolates for Lent, and failed.
Witty Eccles reply. "This is the face of true evil."
Audience reaction (and this, if anything, proves that British irony doesn't travel well): I hope you didn’t give up "calling priests evil" or "exaggerating" or "joking not joking" or what New Yorkers called "joking on a square" for Lent.
Pope Francis will not eat his choco-Luther until Lent is over.
O.K. from now on I will stop telling jokes. Here instead is a purely factual piece of spiritual nourishment.
New Catholic helpline.
Worried about / whom to consult.
Climate change - Pope Francis. Coronavirus - Cardinal Nichols. Sexual problems - Cardinal Marx. Sin, redemption, etc. - Er, position still vacant.
To which someone added: Liturgical Dancing / Cardinal Tagle. See? People are starting to appreciate my serious comments.
Pope Francis II?
Britannia (or Britannius?) Keen on diversity, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism.
British values were first developed in the age of Prehistoric Britain, which is supposed to have started in about 500,000 B.C. (give or take a few months). In those days schoolchildren were taught to paint themselves with woad - blue for boys, pink for girls - and any kid who wore the wrong colour woad was told to stop being silly.
Diversity was not really popular in those days. The ancient British were very worried about invasions of ancient Franks and Germans - which is why they dug the English Channel - but probably more worried about woolly mammoths.
MAMMOTHS KEEP OUT. Coming over here, eating our cabbages, ...
Presumably the exploits of Adam and Eve were known about, but Christian values were at a rather primitive state.
So let us go forward to 1707, when Britain arose from out the azure main (as the song has it), and became a kingdom including England, Wales and Scotland. What were British values then?
Well, same-sex marriage still wasn't very popular (it basically went out of fashion around the time of Nero, with occasional unsuccessful revivals, as in the time of Edward II), and transgenderism was limited to hairy Scotsmen wearing kilts. Equality and diversity were definitely continental notions (especially after 1789), and shunned by all decent people.
A despised member of society, but only because of the bagpipes.
Christianity was mainly of the Protestant variety, although not a lot like the modern Church of England. People got their ideas mostly from the New Testament, rather than "Thought for the Day". Tolerance and respect for idiots, not being a Christian virtue, was virtually unknown.
So far so good, British values were not all that far from Christian values. Possibly empire-building, fighting the French, and so on, were not entirely in accordance with God's plans, but they were more-or-less OK.
So what is the problem in religious schools these days? Well, at St Custard's we have this:
"Please sir, I want to be a girl." Six of the best for you, Molesworth, sa Headmaster GRIMES chiz chiz chiz
And at St Trinians Catholic School they found this practical way of dealing with an Anglican who enrolled by mistake:
I won't describe the scenes of carnage that followed when St Trinians played hockey against St Aisha's School for the
Daughters of Muslim Gentlefolk. 11-0, with 8 Aishains
retired hurt.
Still, St Trinians girls met their match when the boys girls of St Bruce's Caitlin's Transgender
Academy challenged them. It was not a pretty sight.
Anyway, given a choice between Christian values and modern "British values", I think it's time to change my name to Eccleczyk, and declare myself to be Polish.
"Fun" before Mass.
Your idiot of a correspondent thinks that the bedlam in many Catholic churches before and after Mass can be justified because "God doesn't mind". So bad have things come that I was told off by a priest last week because my silent prayer was disturbing those who were trying to text, gossip, laugh and play games of darts. Apparently it was putting a damper on the occasion.
Those sacred minutes before Mass starts.
Indeed, I was warned that kneeling down and looking solemn was definitely a "holier-than-thou" attitude, not welcome in the Church of St Daryl the Apostate. Apparently, Fr Phil is making lots of exciting innovations, including a side-chapel where money-changers may operate, plus the opportunity to buy doves symbolizing the Spirit of Vatican II. I don't know about you, but this makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
Pastor Juventus F.C.
Faithful Catholics love the EU.
Stands to reason, dunnit, guv? Ever since Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D., and the new emperor used his powers to deal with the pressing problems of curved bananas and mislabelled prunes, it has been clear that pious Catholics must support ever-closer European union.
Over the years several good Catholics such as Napoléon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler have tried to unify Europe, knowing that this was God's will. What's more, we should listen to the wise words of Pope Francis, which exhort us to believe in climate change, to give the Falkland Islands to Argentina, and to support the San Lorenzo football club. When popes make such statements it is a refreshing change from all the usual boring stuff about religion, and we should take their words seriously.
"Supporters of other teams cannot be saved" says the Pope.
Yes, make no mistake, people who oppose having their laws made by corrupt, overpaid and unelected bureaucrats in Brussels are DAMNED. What's more, the Catholic Bishops' Conference in Mordor Square agrees with me!
Fr Cloud Cuckoo-Land.
Sack Ronnie Rolheiser!
Every week Ronald Rolheiser's column is entitled "The last word", but unfortunately he's always back again the following week. And he writes such drivel...
Eccles.
The heart sinks (and what do Ron's hand gestures mean?)
And finally, a cheap shot from a Scots Nat.
Your correspondent writes, "In England we are preparing for a referendum on the EU." He didn't mention Scotland, and that proves that we nationalists won the independence vote. When we go to Heaven we shall feast on porridge and haggis, while praising God on the bagpipes. Och Aye!
Rabbi Burns.
Praise the Lord upon the badly-tuned bagpipes!
The youngest son steps out.
At this point we should point out that the youngest son was definitely in two minds about going. His heart told him to leave, even though his head told him it would be madness. Still, in the end he went, and soon squandered the few pounds he had been able to take with him; then he decided to print his own money, but it was not widely accepted, and indeed the expression "Bent as a five-salmond note" soon passed into common usage.
He therefore went to work for a farmer, and was sent into the fields to feed the haggises. He would have loved to have fed himself on the revolting porridge that these creatures ate, but none was given to him.
The taming of the haggis.
After a while he could take no more of this, and said "I will arise and go to my father, and say, 'Father, give me money and I will live with you.'" For this trick had worked in 1707 (did we mention that the youngest son was adopted?)
And his father saw him coming when he was still far off, and said "Bring my best pair of trousers and put it on him; for he cannot wear that dreadful kilt, as it frightens the cat. Also, let us kill the fatted calf and have a fatted Yorkshire pudding with it: anything but haggis, anyway."
... with fatted Eccles cakes to follow.
Now, the eldest son, David, was in the field, tending to the leek harvest, and singing strange ballades, as was his wont, and as he returned to the house he heard wondrous music: for the youngest brother had brought his bagpipes back with him, and was attempting to play James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie on them.
I thought pole dancing was naughtier than this.
And he was angry and said to his father, "In all the years I have been with you, I never caused half as much trouble as my young brother, and yet he gets a wild party."
And the father said, "Son, it was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was lost, and is found."
And at that moment the youngest son popped his head round the door and said, "Thanks, Dad. Well, I'll be off again now..."
The prodigal son breaks the news to his father.
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!
