A window on Canon Lewis' views

As one would expect of the former senior archivist of the diocese, Fr Crusty presented me with a sheaf of bulldog clipped papers, from his ancient box folder. I think I bored you enough the other week with the marriage contract of Aoife, and I did express a note of caution when it was brought to my attention that the original of the Synod of Rath Breasil was a possible forgery (it having been pointed out that its yellowing pages still had a few tea leaves attached) , so I decided to canvass Canon Lewis' views on the matter - and I went forthwith to his bijou little presbytery in Trollbury St Richeldis. (I should say that while the Catholic Church was built on the edge of a 1980's gated housing estate on land sold by the Cutleys during one of their periodic financial crises, the presbytery was in fact the old Anglican Rectory, which lay in the centre of the chocolate box village - and had been sold off by the C of E during one of theirs).

Trollbury St Richeldis, where Canon Lewis is the only Labour voter

He had offered to email me all his correspondence, but Hetty had made a bit of a dogs dinner of my printer cartridge, and I was awaiting the return of Cutley Minimus from Bristol University, as he is the only chap who can deal with the matter (and it helps that he shows an aristocratic indifference to the presence of spaniel spittle).

The good Canon was very dismissive of my concerns about the departure of the Brendanite Oblates, and said that matters had been settled  in a vibrant and forward looking way, and that I need not trouble myself any further on the matter. As I entered his study he sprang to attention, and minimised the windows on his desktop, which took a little while as he seemed to have multiple pages open - all from the Damian Thompson Blog, "Holy Smoke" in that excellent newspaper "The Daily Telegraph". I must admit that I was a little curious at his interest - given that the General and Local Election results in Trollbury Rural (which were helpfully pointed out to me by several outraged parishioners in May 2010)  were as follows:

Biffo Coutts-Leigh Sotherington (Conservative) 30785
Derek Ginjag (Ratepayers against the Channel Tunnel) 20604
Marjory Leigh-Sotherington Coutts (Forty-Shilling Freeholders and Spaniel-Breeders Alliance) 10452
Sid Millispart (Labour) 1

The good canon fiddled about with his online folders, and hit the print button a few times - but after the first page or two - the printer ran out of paper. The Canon was a tad put out, and, having told me not to touch anything, he threw  his donkey-jacket over his shoulders and dashed out to get some more from the church office - which gave me ten minutes or so alone with my temptations.