This is me, Eccles

This is me, Eccles
This is me, Eccles

Monday 26 November 2012

Church of England to be privatised

Head Office

The prestigious Head Office.

Having discovered that it cannot control the Church of England without provoking a constitutional crisis, the Government has decided to privatise it as a public limited company, to be called the English God Corporation (EGCO). This will be regulated by a new quango, OFGOD (likely to be chaired by Sir Tony Baldry).

Sir Tony Baldry

Sir Tony Baldry - his cunning plan is that EGCO will be bound by the high standards of the Freemasons and the Garrick Club.

The proposed line-up, at least initially, is:

Chairman: H.M. Queen Elizabeth II.

Managing Director: Sir Justin Welby.

Board of Directors: +Bognor Regis, +Newport Pagnell, and various other diocesan representatives beginning with a plus sign. As an Equal Opportunities Employer, EGCO will ensure that many of these are female.

Honorary consultant (non-voting member): The Holy Spirit.

Assets: A huge number of old buildings, some with pointy spires and others with big towers. Currently, mostly unoccupied. Also, large supplies of candles, hymn books, and vestments (in fact, something of a surplice).

Activities: praying, hymn singing, blowing own trumpet (cf. Giles Fraser). Also, extensive charity work, but this will mostly be done away with for financial reasons.

Sir Tony Baldry

At present, only men are allowed to operate this heavy "smiting" machinery.

EGCO is to be floated on the stock market in the near future, and shareholders will be guaranteed the following benefits:

  • Free use of the services provided by EGCO, with coffee and a chocolate biscuit afterwards.
  • Voting rights at the Annual General Meeting (formerly, the "Synod").
  • An excellent post-life benefits package, at least compared with those who have not taken out any other form of post-life insurance.
    WARNING: souls may go down as well as up.
Heaven

This picture is merely illustrative, and shareholders may be sent to alternative destinations.

If the flotation is a success, the Government is already speaking of other privatisations. However there is little to be done about the multi-national Catholico, which is registered in the tax haven of Vatican City. Another difficult task will be to try and regulate the ISLAM business.

ISLAM

ISLAM - unlikely to be impressed by Sir Tony Baldry.

5 comments:

  1. Will Mister Baldy allow ladies into his club as well? If so, I don't want to go into a club for Slapheads xx Jess

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  2. Hello all

    I am putting together a venture capital consortium (High Equity Leverage Limited) to buy into the exciting new privatised EGCO plc. We have a great track record since 1962 of strategic acquisition and turnaround of unsuspecting religious organisations, and are looking to expand our operations, following our decision to withdraw from the day to day running of NuChurch plc, as the Easter People who were our core customer demographic are dying off; many of our female employees are taking a hard earned sabbatical bus trip, and we have been experiencing labour relations difficulties in Blackfen, Shrewsbury, Nebraska, and even at Head Office.

    With cash backing from Hewlett Packard, the Gates Foundation, George Soros, Population Concern and a variety of other financial backers sourced from Laurence England's blog (Thanks, Bones) we have amassed enough capital to buy a majority shareholding.

    There will be a number of management changes as follows:

    In spite of the recent presence of an Archdruid on the Board of Directors, we feel there is more scope for paganism within EGCO. There are a large number of wiccan ladies, such as myself, who have considerable pastoral experience, and who could be "fast tracked" to senior positions in management. Any synod member who objected last week will find themselves well and truly hexed, if they do so again.

    Of course, as Wiccans prefer to conduct their ceremonies skyclad on Alderley Edge, they will not require the vast property portfolio currently held by ECGO, and as seasoned asset strippers, the new bishopesses will ensure any redundant land is allowed to be flood the market and be sold off cheaply to speculators following the great tradition of the Church Commissioners over the last 50 years.

    Our management consultant Chap With Wings has suggested that Country churches, currently woefully underutilised after 8pm, could become timeshare properties, with the local satanist communities making full use of existing facilities on a nightshift basis (subject to an agreement to replace any altar breads used, and to clear away any cat guts before Morning Prayer). There may be a small cost involved with re-ordering (including the inversion of crucifixes, the provision of new altars large enough to take a full sized human, hooded chasubles,and a switch to black candles, but we hope that economies of scale can be achieved by sharing resources with local Aztec and Kali-worshipping communities.

    We have been promised favourable media coverage from the BBC (this was much easier than I thought it would be, though we did have to sacrifice a virgin director general to fix it).

    We have no serious competition in global markets, since many key employees at our main competitor's outfit have been defecting at such a rate that we are running very short of virgins and are having to stockpile raisins to offer as an alternative inducement. (Probably time to engineer a bus accident).

    Although we have the necessary backing to begin already, as we expand and make further acquisitions, we shall probably require further investment. So I will be putting together a proposal to take to the Dragons Den (and I don't mean those pansies in a warehouse set).


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    Replies
    1. Dat's luvvly, Jaddis!

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    2. Thank you, Eccles.

      Thanks to the publicity from your blog, we have had an offer from Sister Muriel to do a sponsored swim across the River Thames dressed as a donkey to raise funds to buy shares on behalf of her order, the Sisters of Perpetual Indignation. And a Fr Ass has offered to compose a new liturgy for us, as since his new bishop arrived, he has had a lot of time on his hands, having developed RSI as a result having his wrists slapped. Someone called Booby Chickens has offered his services in tracing our genealogy back to the Witch of Endor, and the University of Woehampton will be running a specially designed catechists course next year.

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  3. At Question Time in the Commons, the Labor member from Entwhistle-under-Something opposed this move by the Government, saying that it was an anti-Labor initiative. “The Cof E should be nationalized,” he asserted vociferously.

    Reminded by the Member from Chipping-Hogsworth that the CofE had already been nationalized some time back, he replied: “Oh well, that’s alright then”.

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