New Year Honours

Following my nomination for a Liebster award, I have been nominated for a Sunshine Award by the wonderful Jessica Hof, chatelaine of All Along the Watchtower.

Now, I have to do one or two things, so please excuse me for being boring:

Write 10 pieces of information about yourself.

Well, luckily these don't all have to be strictly true.

1. I now live in a dog kennel in Croydon with rather dodgy Wi-Fi.

2. My favourite Christmas Carol is probably "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing".

3. Yes, I really do like eating Eccles cakes with custard.

Yummmmm...

4. I do not speak Catalan, Samoan or Swahili. I prefer Masses in Latin.

5. I have just changed the name of my blog to "Eccles is saved" as a result of certain doubts about brother Bosco.

6. Unlike Nicholas Parsons, I was not awarded an OBE. But I do have a Sunshine Award.

An OBE won't save you if you're being followed by two unsaved persons.

7. Father Zuhlsdorf is thinking of renaming his blog "Reading Francis through Eccles".

8. My Auntie Moly hasn't quite got the idea of carol services: you are supposed to sing the same as everyone else sings. No wonder they chucked her out.

Probably not a Christmas carol.

9. Paul Inwood invited us round for Christmas. "Have you got a turkey for us?" we asked.
"No, but I can write another one in the next 10 minutes or so," he replied.

10. I do not play the trombone, but I wish I could.

Scientific research.

Nominate ten fellow bloggers "who positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere."

Well, I'll avoid the well-known blogs with millions of followers, and go for the following:

Meadowsweet. Poems and paintings.

Ragazzagallese. The great Rhoslyn Thomas.

Linen on the hedgerow.. Catholicism and wit.

Mulier Fortis. Cats and Catholics.

Countercultural Father. Ben Trovato.

Men are like Wine. Traditional Catholic.

Battlements of Rubies. Catholic Midwife.

De Omnibus Dubitandum Est. Erudite.

The Catachesis of Caroline. By a star of TV and the press.

Catholic Lisa. Weird and wonderful. And the blog is too.

Brother Lapin's Pilgrimage. Catholic donkeys.

Yes, that's eleven, but I was one short last time I had to do this sort of thing.

Leave a comment on the nominees' blogs to tell them of the award.

Will do, if I can ever read those captchas. Or I'll contact them some other way, e.g. Twitter.

A particularly difficult captcha to solve.

How to write a religious blog II

Well, yesterday's introduction to religious blogging was very popular, and achieved a massive 5 hits, only 4 of which were from me. So, encouraged by this, let me continue to advise you.

When you're writing a blog, it is important to be able to show your readers what you've had to eat. Probably, this is because the reader says to himself, "If I eat frogs' legs/ cornflakes/ roast camel/ peas with honey, then I too can become an archbishop/ a celebrity blogger/ a Tablet journalist/ a saved person." Alas, this is usually not going to happen.

In fact, today I had the best that French cuisine could offer.

Other things that you can do to add the "personal" touch to your blog include photographing key items in your everyday life, such as your cats, your kitchen, your dustbins, perhaps your lavatory.

Now the easiest kind of blog to write is one where you post spiritually nourishing paintings and poems. Such blogs are usually very good, because the material is, by definition, produced by someone talented. This is the sort of thing I mean:

Old Noah he had an ostrich farm and fowls on the largest scale,
He ate his egg with a ladle in a egg-cup big as a pail,
And the soup he took was Elephant Soup and fish he took was 
   Whale,
But they all were small to the cellar he took when he set out to 
   sail,
And Noah he often said to his wife when he sat down to dine,
"I don't care where the water goes if it doesn't get into the 
   wine."

Painting by Breughel, poem by G.K. Chesterton.

See what I mean? This has already improved the quality of my post, immeasurably. And Noah is in the Bible, so is a spiritually nourishing person. Come to think of it, why do I waste my time trying to produce original stuff?

Some blogs are co-operative efforts. Jessica Hof has an excellent blog called All along the watchtower, which has several different authors - some Anglicans, Catholics, a Baptist, and - occasionally - my dear brother Bosco of the Calvary Chapel, who was the inspiration for my own blog. This keeps the blog very active, although there is necessarily a divergence of opinions: if an article begins All pictures of my Lord are false images and idolatry, and shows that the artists didn't have Jesus in their lives like I do, and they'll all be left behind when the Rapture comes. Ha ha! - well, that was probably written by Bosco rather than someone from a mainstream branch of Christianity.

Sorry, Rubens - it's the Lake of Fire for you!

Let's finish today with some ideas on how to write an American priest's blog. Now American priests all have complicated names, such as Zuhlsnecker or Longedorf, so are best referred to simply as "Father M" or "Father Q", as if they were James Bond characters. Unlike British priests, who always lead luxurious well-paid lives, with regular holidays in Tahiti and deacons to wait on them hand and foot, American priests are generally broke, and often need to raise money through their blogs. Their demands vary from 10 cents, which will buy a crust of dry maggotty bread for dinner, up to $500, which will buy a new silk biretta with a special compartment in which to store the priest's handgun.

Do give generously. Buy the coffee they're sponsoring - remember, Mystic Monk coffee makes you live longer and develop a sharper mind, while the rival Numinous Nun coffee causes arthritis and dizzy spells. You know it makes sense.

Finally, two tips for rescuing a blog post when it's running out of steam, as this one is:

Post a picture of some sweet furry creatures (these are possums).

Or use a picture of people making fools of themselves in church.

The Pilgrim's Ogress 4 - the guilt of Titus' Grandma

Continued from Part 3

Eccles's Anti Moly takes up the tale.

After my stupid nephew escaped from the Tablet headquarters in Hammersmith, he wanted to go to Blogfen, a woeful traddy parish somewhere near Sidcup. Eccles had heard that there was a meeting there in honour of Titus' Grandma, to which Catholic bloggers were invited. My nephew somehow thought that he would be welcome.

This is Titus, but we never met his Grandma.

It was quite difficult to get to Blogfen, because our donkey, Micky, carrying the emergency gin supplies, wasn't allowed on buses or trains. Also, Eccles wanted to go incognito, as he had heard that a lunatic from Croydon was out for his blood; so he dressed up as a clown and pretended to be his brother Bosco. We missed the religious events, but arrived in time for the party.

Our donkey, also in disguise.

The event was very strange. There was an old man called "Lofty" present, who said he had come along in order to shut down as many blogs as possible. He also had an interesting theory, based on turning over several pages of St Luke's Gospel at once, that Jesus was only on the Earth for one week - Born on a Monday, Baptised on Tuesday, Retreated on Wednesday, Did His ministry on Thursday, Crucified on Friday, Rose on Saturday, Ascended on Sunday. Lofty spent most of the party exchanging scowls with someone they called the "LMS Chairman", and in the end the two of them went outside for a punch-up and never came back.

Eccles asked me to republish this photo of Basil Foltus as a young man.

Eccles says he will always look at Tina Beattie in a new light, as a result of the Blogfen party. As a leading Catholic thinker, she had come to the meeting, and Eccles, who is a little infatuated with her, asked her to dance. It was woeful seeing "luvvly Tina" and my idiot nephew Eccles tango-ing to a Gregorian chant, but this was supposed to be an occasion for getting to know new people.

Hans Küng was there too, and I thought he and I might dance, so I went up to him to ask. Silly me, it was his statue! Apparently Fr Finigan, the host of the party, had been given a copy of the original statue, and had not yet found a good home for it. Well, after a bottle or two of gin, it was an easy mistake for me to make.

Woeful - this man refused to dance with me.

Several more traddy bloggers were also present, many from the Brighton area. I remember talking to a man called Bones; he had come with his friend Blakey from Brighton, who kept saying "I 'ate you, Gardner", although we never discovered who this Gardner man was.

Bones (with an unusual cross) and Blakey.

But the person I remember best, because he talked for three hours without interruption, was someone they called "The Archbishop of Corby". I jotted down a few gems of his conversation, such as, "Make sure you understand the question you're asking, Ma'am, but it seems you prefer a black and white answer to a labyrinth of conditional logic gates you won't even acknowledge, as it's a question of objective disordering circumstances and Noachide/natural moral law, exposing your ignorance of intention/motive and circumstantial factors." This was in response to "Would you like another cup of tea, your Grace?" from a lady in a mantilla.

Sitting on the naughty chair.

Ah well, I slipped under the table shortly after that, and don't remember much more. Such is life, eh? What's more, they played Gregorian chant all afternoon, and not the music I wanted to dance to. Woeful.

This is the sort of music I prefer.

To be continued by another author.

Near-death experiences

In view of a near-death experience claimed by Dr Eben Alexander, which is the basis of his new book Proof of Heaven, we asked some of the regular characters appearing on this blog to describe their own near-death experiences.

---

Bosco, worshipper at the Calvary Chapel, and saved person.

Hello, could I speak to Jesus, please?

Eccles, you poor sick monkey, I had a rotten experience when I tried to save a convent of nuns, and I was badly beaten up by them. As I lay in hospital, near to death, I found that I was standing outside the Gates of Heaven, explaining to St Peter that all Catholics were idolaters, and should be sent to the Lake of Fire. "I am saved, even more than you are," I told him. "I've come for my throne and my golden crown."

St Peter is shocked by Bosco's blog.

"Ah, Bosco," said St Peter. "I've been reading your blog, and we've got a totally different fate for you..."

---

Damian Thompson, formerly a religious journalist.

Damian is the one alone at the front, whom nobody else will talk to.

The first thing that struck me about St Peter, when I saw him, was that he was putting on weight. In fact, the whole tone of Heaven was very disappointing, and I was totally unimpressed with the angels, who were definitely smirking at me. The music was not Gladys Mills plays Beethoven, as I had been led to expect, nor even something by my friend James MacMillan, but a dirge that sounded like an eternal repetition of "Alleluia Ch-ch."

Angels - what dreadful hair styles they have.

---

Moly, aunt of Eccles and Bosco.

A recent photo of Moly.

Well I don't believe in God or Heaven, but I did have a very strange dream last night when I finally dropped off. I was in Paradise, wearing my new Moly Number 5 cigarette- and gin-scented perfume. But I was surrounded by possums, all jumping up and down, and there wasn't a bottle of gin to be had anywhere. "It's endless torment for you," said a loud voice to me, probably one of those bullying traddy Catholics. Woeful.

Vicious possums. They're out to get me. I know it.

---

Father Arthur, of the Church of St Daryl the Apostate.

I'm a priest in good standing, you know.

Well, I wasn't going to stand any calumny from the man waiting for me at the Gates of Heaven, so I got my attack in first. "May I remind you, 'Saint' Peter, that as recorded in the 26th chapter of the book of St Matthew, and elsewhere, you denied Christ on no less than three occasions? Does that give you the right to comment on the behaviour of other people? I am a priest in good standing, with no time for your traditionalist ways. Haven't you people heard of Vatican II? Now clear off, and let me do your job properly for you."

The Last Judgement. But Fr Arthur will willingly give you a preliminary verdict.

Genuine book reviews

These book reviews of Eccles's new book How to be a saved pusson were written by the people indicated, and no sockpuppets were used. Honest.

---

Job

1. And the Lord spake unto Job, saying, "Job, my good servant, thou hast suffered many tribulations. Here is a wondrous book by Eccles, that thou mayest read. Hopefully it will comfort thee in thy woe."

2. And Job took the book and said unto himself "Lo! It is a jolly good read. I shall tell all my friends in the Old Testament, that they may also profit from it."

3. But, as he was reading the wise words of Eccles, an angel knocked at the door, and caused Job to drop the book. It fell out of his hands and landed on his toe.

4. And the toe of Job swelled up, and caused unto him grievous pain. Yeah, it was ready to fall off completely.

5. And Job cursed, saying, "It goeth to be one of those days again, doth it not?"

---

Dr Samuel Johnson

I [Boswell] shewed unto Dr Johnson a new book that had arrived that very day, penned by the hand of one Eccles. "I know not the writer," said the Doctor. "Read me some of his words."

I read to him the passage in which Eccles told the story of his Australian aunt, she who had complained about possums knocking over a pile of tin cans in her garden.

"This Eccles is indeed a wise writer," said the Doctor. "He sayeth non possum, while his aunt says possum. But she sayeth I can while her very cans are disordered."

We all laughed merrily at the doctor's brilliant remarks, and I undertook to publish them on my blog.

---

St John the Evangelist

1. And this is the testimony of Eccles, when the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: Who art thou?

2. And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ.

3.And they asked him: What then? Art thou Damian Thompson? And he said: I am not. Art thou Pope Benedict? And he answered: No.

4. They said therefore unto him: Who art thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself?

5. He said: I am the voice of a saved person blogging in the wilderness. And all who read my blog shall be slightly saved too.

---

William Shakespeare

From This one's a waste of time as well

KING: Tell me, fool, of what manner is this book of Eccles?

FOOL: Sire, it like unto the apple tree that grew in the Garden of Eden. For it contains all the knowledge of good and evil. Then again, it seemeth to me to resemble the golden hippopotamus of legend, that which floated on the breezes of the Hesperides and which led Orlando to destruction in the Pass of Roncesvalles.

KING: Which legend is that, fool? I know it not.

FOOL: Me neither, Sire, I was just testing thee. Still, 'tis an excellent goodly book, and containeth great wisdom.

Anti Moly replies

WOEFUL!

I want to make it clear to all of you that I never under any circumstances read Eccles's vicious and cruel blog, which takes trivial incidents from my life and exaggerates them out of all proportion.

For example, in his entry of 8th July 2011, when he first recorded my arrival, he referred to me incorrectly as "Grate-Ant Molly," and claimed that I had been detained at the police station for vagrancy (which my illiterate nephew spells "vaguerancy"). In fact, I had merely gone there to report that someone - probably a fanatical Catholic - had put 25 baby possums in my hotel room; they were running round the room, bouncing up and down on my bed, and they knocked over six bottles from my meagre supply of medicinal gin.

Then again, in the entry of 9th July...

[50 pages deleted here. Sorry, Anti Moly!]

Anyway, having corrected all the errors in Eccles's nasty blog, let me take the opportunity to dispel the most recent rumours, namely, that I deliberately tried to kill my nephew by cooking a poisonous meal for him.

Delicious bush tucker

In Pottymouth, the beautiful Australian city where I normally live (although at present I am an exile in London), we don't have any pathetic pommy squeamishness about food. Spiders, snakes, old socks, hairbrushes... all these constitute "bush tucker," and are delicious when fried in gin. On Sunday I decided to do some cooking, as everyone else in the household had gone to church, and I made a delicious Pottymouth Goulash à la Cardinal Pell - named after an old admirer of mine. Perhaps I added too much anti-freeze - such is life, eh - for when Eccles came back to partake of this culinary delight, he was very ill. However, I ate some myself, so that proves it was harmless.

Eccles has also written some misleading comments about my false teeth.

My new set of false teeth

It is true that I lost my previous set of false teeth, and it is even true that a Catholic priest found them and venerated them as a relic. However, I did not throw the teeth at him - they slipped from my hand when I was gesturing to him to get lost. I'm just putting the record straight here, although those fanatical traddy Catholics are determined to lie about the events.

While I am here, perhaps I can also set the record straight about the events of June 2010, when judy8 (note, no capital letter!) was not banned from Damian Thompson's blog, whatever people say. Far from it: indeed, Damian invited me to write my own Telegraph blog, because he was so impressed by my incisive debating style. It's true that judy8 vanished and I came back under the names of AlfredHaddock (no space) and molybdenite (lower case); however, these were not sockpuppets but...

[Another 50 pages deleted here. Sorry again, Anti Moly!]

Well, that's the short explanation, anyway. I can give more details if anyone wants them.

Let me close with a few comments about England. It really is a woeful place, with a high concentration of pommies, Catholics, males, females, young people, old people and middle-aged people - these are all sections of society that I dislike strongly. The worst freaks of all are to be found on the Telegraph blogs pages, although I make an exception for courteous, saintly, polite and charming Charles Cutley Utley, the celebrity blogger, novelist and lawyer. He has not been seen lately, and it seems that he is greatly changed by his sufferings; however, he has sent me a recent photograph, which I would like to share with you.

"Slightly grumpy" Charles Utley

Well, stands the church clock at ten to three, and are there spiders still for tea? I think so. Such is life, eh.

moly

Four out of ten old ladies drink hair-restorer

A geust blogg from Damain Thopmson
 

---

Up to 40% of old ladies drink hair-restorer, according to recent research undertaken by the University of Adelaide. My own informal observations bear this out, as Patient M, a ridiculously old lady who is also currently my guest in Castle Thompson - as is her great-nephew, a charming man called Eccles - has turned out to be a consumer of many unusual products.

My butler, Will Heaven, reports that Anti Moly, as Eccles calls her, began by drinking my supplies of gin and whisky, but, when he started to lock these up, she turned to other substances.

Did I mention that I have written a book on addiction, called The Fix? Do buy a copy. I am hoping that Eccles will agree to serialize excerpts on his lovely blog. Anyway, in my book I treat all sorts of addictions and obsessions: for example, there is a biologist in South America who is addicted to stories of clerical child abuse, having a whole laboratory wall decorated with stories from the Puffington Post and the New Yawn Times. Another strange addiction I write about is cinnabons, a sticky cake much loved by Yorkshire bishops.

Returning to Patient M, once she had run out of conventional alcoholic drinks, she drank a bottle of my Geoffrey Lean hair-restorer; then she went to the garage and drank my supply of Delinpol anti-freeze (much to the annoyance of Hannan my chauffeur). Finally, getting desperate, she drank a bottle of her own Possumgon, a product she uses to protect the roof of her Australian home from enthusiastic marsupials.

Her drinking is irregular, but when she decides to have a "binge" or "meltdown," she is often seen on the internet, posting insults on blogs (including my own). For some reasons she particularly hates Catholics, especially serious ones.

Patient M seems to be immune to poison, according to her nephew Eccles. The old photograph below shows M and her friend informing a visitor that they had added some arsenic to his drink, "To give it some bite."

Well, it's difficult to know what to do in such cases, but if enough people buy my book The Fix, I will be able to do some more in-depth research (Tenerife looks like a promising place to start).

Suol for sale

Well, after yesterdday's news, we fuoght dat Bosco had got it made. Mr Mepphisto was prepared to buy Bosco's suol in exchange for supplyin him with unlimmited wealth, girls, and cement doves. But Mepphisto decidded to do some market resaerch, viz readin Bosco's luvvly blogg, and so he withdrew de offer, sayin "Ho hum, it seems dat we is gonna be getting your suol in de end, anyways." You just can't trust devills, can you?

Dis has blown a big hole in Bosco's spendin plans, as de econommists say, and means dat his idea of retirin to a troppical paradise wiv some concupines has got to be put on hold. A pity, as I had been readin de brochures, and I fuond just de place for him.

Still, suols is worth monney, so Bosco decidded to put his on Ebbay. We was gonna adverttise it as "A simple soul," but it seems dat dere's a Fluabert chap who is also sellin his, so we got compettition.

We aint got many offers yet for dis valauble commoddity of Bosco's.

Now Anti Moly has been complainin about possums on de roof and a clique of traddy Cathlic sockpoppets under de bed. Dey is keepin her awake until 5 a.m. every nihgt, so she aint got nuffin to do but take a bottle of gin and start bloggin. De doctor said it was Dellirium Tremendous, but Anti insisted dat she was as sober as a newt, so we looked under her bed, and out crawled Bosco. He had been feelin so humilliated dat he went and hid dere. Dont worry, dere bruvver Bosco, we will find a buyer for your suol.

"I told you dat dere was somefink under my bed," screeched Anti Moly, althuogh in fact Bosco is as far from bein a traddy Cathlic as it is possible to be wivvout actaully wearin a bone thruogh de nose and doin humman scarifices (Bosco dont do that no more, cos he is saved). Later on we looked on de roof as well, and dere was indeed a possum jumpin up and down.

Anti Moly finks dat it will make a very nice pie, she reely appreciattes Austrialan wildlife.