Navy Larks

I think I left you in Mrs Cutley's boot room with two panting and muddy Cavaliers, and an equally dishevelled lady of the manor, for which I must apologise.

Mrs Cutley soon recovered her customary hauteur (as did Hetty and Charlie) without feeling the need to shake herself clean all over the Hunter Wellies (unlike two spaniels who shall remain nameless). She left and returned immediately with two steaming mugs of builders' tea. Not quite the Earl Grey and Copenhagen experience that usually represents her welcoming salvo, but it was appreciated nonetheless. Before I could get a word in edgeways and tap the good lady to lend her lawn for the firework display in June, however, she made so bold as to tackle me about Mgr Porter.

Apparently he had taken the news about the chalice very badly, and was on the warpath. With Mgr Porter that usually meant a spot of aggiornamento - which is Italian for ripping a perfectly respectable church to shreds, and relocating the tabernacle on a lifebuoy somewhere to the west of St Kilda.

Cathedral minding its own business and packed to the gunnels

Some people (notably those who disdained to buy their bedding from Brentford Nylons in the 1970s) have coined the term "wreckovation" for this particular activity, and deep down I do wonder sometimes whether Sr Cain had made Pope Paul VI one of her signature omelettes, on the day he signed the instruction which effectively let a bunch of Theology graduates without so much as a CSE in bricklaying wreak havoc on 1500 years worth of Church Architecture.

Fr Crusty did tell me once that it was the Masons who were responsible, so I expect they had a passing acquantaince with the tools of the trade, though I would not like to sit underneath the great lump of cast iron shown below on a windy day. Were I the new incumbent of Milwaukee, I would be severely tempted to hold an ecumenical service for Romanian scrap metal dealers, and let nature take its course.

After the archbishop's friends Julian and Sandy have given it a  makeover

Anyway, what happens (for any of our separated brethren who might be reading this blog) is that a congregation wakes up after the sermon one Sunday and finds the above sight has turned into this, and as they stumble in a daze towards the door, they fall over the baptismal font and straight into the folk choir, scattering the liturgical dancers like leotard-clad dominoes.

Rum stuff, and as you have guessed, I am none too keen, but Mgr Porter proceeds like a Narvik class destroyer at full steam ahead, and ignoring all instructions to heave to. I decided to SOS a fisherman of my acquaintance, seeking immediate assistance. He was a decent chap who went off course a couple of times, but made it safely to harbour, and I was sure that he would have the key to the whole affair.