I cannot, now, recall whether The Pope is or is not infallible – but he certainly seems to have got himself into the middle of a Jihad of his own with his recent speech on Holy War: BBC Story
It is some time since I have taken communion. My Archbishop was a little surprised by the amount of communion wine being consumed in my duomo – and I felt he over reacted when he called me a heretic simply because I had expressed the view that our forefathers, The Romans, were onto a good thing with many gods – but I still feel a sense of doom when I read stories about religious groups making comments about other religious groups. Bound to lead to trouble. I mean….look what happened when The Pope refused to sanction Henry VIII’s various divorces. The guy ran amok, dissolved the monasteries, took the money and set himself up as the Defender of the Faith. And…Jeez… all those Archbishops in England…Cranmer, Latymer et al being roasted alive by the Queen who liked Bloody Marys.
No… my advice, and a tenet by which I have lived most of my mature life…stay off religion.
It was good of cugino dall’Inghilterra to invite me as a guest on his blog. I can speaka da English. It is Italian I have difficulty with… but, for you people.. I will try to make myself clear. Stasera prenoterò una tabella in un ristorante con Charon e berremo (Drink) il vino molto rosso (Enjoyably sufficient quantities of red wine) . Comunicheremo ed ammirerò le donne inglesi – if you getta my meaning.. !
e, più successivamente andremo al rhino della menta verde per un buon tempo
*****
Right…Thank you Cardinal..that is quite enough from you. I have only been to Spearmint Rhino once in my life and that was with a group of seriously pissed magic circle corporate finance partners. I was bribing them, I suppose – although I did explain to our Head of Chambers (When he asked for a quiet word) that it was probably good for business. The idea of taking these corporate finance masters of the universe to see some Opera, mooted by a very erudite, etiolated, fellow member of chambers, did not go down too well with the partner i/c Corporate Finance at that firm; I can tell you. Rhino della mente verde...indeed!
Charon QC
It is easy to be lofty about tabloids – but, frankly, at 7.00 am, when I am sipping espresso at a pavement cafe in Parisian West London (Chiswick) and lighting a Silk Cut to ease myself into reading some nonsense, I cannot focus on the quality newspapers. I read them online at 5.00 am when I start work and, later in the day, read the paper version when I sip my first Rioja at 6.00 pm – please note the ‘pm’ bit. Am I becoming a creature of habit? Am I on a SAGA mailing list?
getting rid of their Maggie Logo – the flaming torch – for a green and blue tree made of childlike scribbles, for which they reputedly paid £40,000.
