20 December 2014

Dear Old Mother Hilarious

A friend tells me that at the moment, the C of E, dear sweet old thing, is agonising over 'the Green Report'. It's a laugh a line. Don't miss it. It reads like a satirical spoof by Mgr R A Knox. Perhaps it is.

Another friend tells me of an Anglican Diocese which has invented an 'Archdeacon for Generous Giving'. In other words, the pew-fodder shell out for the stipend of an archdeacon whose job it then is to screw even more money out of them! (But 'Green' is going to cost £2,000,000.)

Turkeys not so much voting as paying for Christmas! Like buying tickets to gain admission to the abattoir!

Magnifique!! Trebles all round! Pass another mince pie!

4 comments:

Reader said...

Reading the news accounts of the Green Report, I see what you mean: the report really must sound like satire. Not a hint of any interest in the personal sanctity of churchmen (sorry, churchpersons). Any MBA can qualify to be an Anglican bishop, it seems.

Tamsin said...

"It is like writing a report about Tesco without mentioning groceries."

Our family has recently discovered the series "Yes, Prime Minister", and we have been enjoying all the episodes, especially "The Bishop's Gambit" in which Jim Hacker must submit a name for the bishopric of Bury St. Edmunds.

It was timely, and is timely.

Unknown said...

There were points within the Green Report where it really seemed to read more as if intended for the manager of a football club; what with "managing the talent pool" and bishops' "transitional coaches".

While one might concede a (Catholic) nod of gracious acknowledgement to the Report's earlier token quoting of Pope Benedict XVI as being he who coined the phrase 'bourgeois Pelagianism' , the very same paragraph of the Report subsequently proceeds to directly coin its own phrase of the most kooky proportions - namely ,"creating spaces of safe uncertainty." They actually mention that same phrase twice in that same paragraph.

One is left to wonder which particular beverage was possibly being imbibed during the actual innovation of the phrase " creating spaces of safe uncertainty." . . . ?

"Safe uncertainty" is a contradictory term; one perhaps eventually destined to take its place alongside some of limited human thinking's more, um, terrific, oxymorons, including: jumbo shrimp , hot water heater ,forward retreat and virtual reality . . . which, one discovers, upon considerable rumination, to be an accurate estimate and an awfully good one , at that!

"Safe uncertainty" : If it is uncertain, it can hardly be deemed safe, because that factor actually remains unknown and indiscernible.

"Safe uncertainty" (if it actually existed) could apparently beget (as opposed to a "leap of faith") a 'leap of doubt'.

This Christmas season, can tend to make turkeys of us all - come Christmas dinner we all generally become gobblers - with the exception that the feathered variety of turkey, tend to gobble (in unsafe uncertainty) more nervously at this particular prospect.

Sue Sims said...

My favourite oxymoron (now, alas, very dated) was always 'Microsoft Works'.