I was quite indignant. You see,

the Provost of the Piskie Cathedral in Glasgow had invited a Moslem to come to his Cathedral at Epiphany and to read some chapter of the Koran which denies the Divinity, or the Divine Sonship or perhaps both, of the Second Person of the Glorious and Undivided Trinity.

And Mr Plod had announced that he was investigating whether a Hate Crime had been committed.

Over the top, I thought. Since I am a Catholic, it would be ecumenical bad manners for me to say what canonical steps should be taken against the daft cleric responsible for the blasphemy. But for Inspector Knacker to prosecute him, and/or the well-meaning Moslem who read the text, for Hate Crime, is quite simply massively disproportionate.

But, as the news item (what journalists revealingly and naively call The Story) unfolded, I suddenly realised that I had got totally the wrong end of Mr Plod's big knobbly stick. The said Plod was not investigating the blasphemers, but ... get this ... the people who had strongly expressed their disapproval of the blasphemy!!! !!! !!!

How very, very, Plod. I am old enough to remember the days of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, when the "Security Forces", poor chaps, had to keep on explaining that dissidents had died in Police Custody because, in their silly Kaffir way, they kept on violently bashing their heads against the boots of their captors.

I don't think the Piskie "bishops" come very well out of it. I am tempted to give them my professional ritual advice on where to put their crosiers. The "Primus" issued one of those shifty hypocritical apologies which are not really an apology at all: he was sorry that people had been upset by the blasphemy. Perhaps, in accordance with Gospel guidelines, he should be renamed the "Ultimus". But that decision, of course, would have to be entirely up to our Partners in Ecumenical Dialogue.

Afterthought: equilibium could be re-established if the Ultimus went along to the Glasgow Central Mosque and chanted the Johannine Prologue in an authentically Scotch dialect of Urdu.