Lockdown Diary, Day 7313

March 31st 2040.

Well, here we are after 20 years of lockdown caused by the Coronavirus, which keeps mutating every so often into something even nastier. The present incarnation is called COVID-39.

The latest form of the Coronavirus.

We are still allowed out to go shopping, and for exercise, but the churches have now been closed for 20 years. It is hard to remember what it was like in the old days, when we went along to St Daryl the Apostate and received Communion on the tongue (to the great annoyance of one or two pearl-clutchers who didn't actually believe in the Real Presence), or, if we wanted, did the Sign of Peace and sang hymns such as Cumberland ("Someone's eating sausages, Lord, Cum-ber-land..."). I may have got the words wrong after all this time.

Nowadays the churches remain closed, and all Masses are live-streamed. Pope Francis II (alias "Chito" Tagle) takes a very relaxed view of these, and priests no longer have to wear vestments. Many of them stay at home and stream the Masses from their bedrooms, without even bothering to choose the liturgically-correct colour for their pyjamas.

Father Brown dresses down for his livestream Mass.

Of course "Chito" takes seriously some aspects of worship, especially liturgical dancing (getting down wiv da yoof, as the 82-year-old teenager puts it) and the faithful are encouraged to skip around their houses during Mass. "Chito" claims to have arthritis and sciatica, so that kneeling is out of the question, but he can still dance the Funky Cardinal.

Late news: a new strain, the Coren virus, is infecting our brothers in the Anglican Church (having flipped between the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church, the Seventh-Day-Adventists, the Baptists, and the Pachamama Church several times during the last 20 years). It is particularly unpleasant.

The Coren virus.

Even later news: Eccles is still waiting for an answer to his "Dubia" - why was he excommunicated from Twitter?

Polly Toynbee on the right to massacre

On massacres, the media need to reflect what is happening in the real world

An edited version of a Guardian article by Polly Toynbee.

Here we go again, the never-ending story of the rightwing newspapers' campaign to roll back the right to massacre. The front page of the Sunday Times is at it once again today: "Record number of people manage to stay alive", which will, it says, "revive the debate over the right to massacre". Right on cue, up pops Tory MP Fiona Bruce of the all-party pro-life group to say, "I don’t understand why there is not more outcry about the fact that we allow viable people to be massacred.”

Should crazy people who wear pyjamas in public be protected?

The fact that some people are not massacred has nothing to do with a woman's right to choose: if a woman does not wish to be a mother, a daughter, a niece, even simply a neighbour, then she has the right to massacre anyone she does not wish to put up with.

What is remarkable about this non-stop stream of anti-massacre stories is how far out of line the rightwing press is with the real world of their readers. It's true that we don't see more than one or two massacres a week around Toynbee Towers in Lewes, nor even at the Castello Politoynbi in Tuscany, but, looking to Africa and the Middle East as our examples, as all good Guardian-readers should, we see that massacres are very, very ordinary, and a mark of civilisation.

Protecting the right to massacre.

A study from the University of California has been looking at TV and movie treatment of massacre: needless to say, they find it makes money, since people want to see on screen a reflection of what they hope for in their daily lives. However, the portrayal of massacres is generally negative. No heroine can commit an angst-free massacre.

We can learn a lesson from Texas!

Look at the flow of anti-massacre stories just in the Mail in the past months, and these are only a selection: "Cameron reacts angrily to ISIS genocide with visit to fish market", "Obama refuses to support massacre of Christians, as he heads for golf course".

The real campaign is to normalise the law in line with attitudes and behaviour. No need for a doctor to authorise a massacre, no need for an late "cut-off" date for decapitations. For the third of women who are likely to murder their families, it remains a stigma few dare discuss openly. Time for the world to catch up with the Guardian approach to an everyday medical fact.

Anti-massacres - bringing us back to the Victorian age.

Adopt a Deacon!

Some of you will remember dat a few weeks ago I adopted a random cradinal - in fact de website assinged to me Cradinal Ouellet. De good man didn't make it to Pop, but he has been in de news recently, cos de Pop sent him to tell de English and Welsh bishops dat dey aint all saved, cos some of dem aint been standin up for truth and justice.

Why is it always you four that I read about on Eccles's blog?

Anyway, we gotta new scheme goin now, which is to adopt a deacon. After all, cradinals is generally pretty well off, both spiritaully and materially, whereas deacons is de lowest of de low, often wiv naggin wives and screemin kids, and perhaps a parish priest wot gets em to unblock de drains after Mass.

A liturgical plunger - essential equipment for a deacon.

Anyway, I singed up for de new "Adopt a Deacon" scheme, cos I know many very good deacons wot could benefit from a few prayers, gifts of old socks, and so forth. In fact dere is one wot lives in de beuatiful town of Barrow-in-Furness and runs a website called Protect de Pop. I was hopin to get him, so I buoght myself de ceremonial pjyamas of de Swiss Gaurd, so dat I cuold do a bit of pop-protectin myself.

My new pair of pjyamas.

Also I got a Swiss army knife, wot has got a special blade for stabbin atheists with.

Still, it was not to be, dey has assinged me a very miserable deacon in Croydon, wot spends his time moanin at uvver Cathlics. Dis is gonna be a big challenge for me but I is gonna bring a little sunshine into de man's life.

De place where I is gonna bring sunshine.

In fact dere has been even more recent developments, as I has been invited to become a deacon myself. I got dis very interestin e-mail from someone called Chuck Umunny in Nigeria, wot told me I could become a deacon by a correspondence course. All I gotta do is give him my bank detials, date of birth, and other pussonal detials such as de name of my favuorite actress (Tina Beattie). In fact de trainin won't take long, as it aint very hard to do deaconly fings, you just says de black and does de red, as a friend of mine puts it - and, of course, you puts de plunger in and woggles it a bit once de priest has blessed de drain.

I may also have to trade in my red beretta (to which, strictly speaking I is not entitled) for a deacon's hat. Dis is de one I has chosen.

Wot deacons gotta wear in church.

So, if de course goes as planned, I will soon be Deacon Eccles. I will keep you posted.