SINGLE LIFE 2

 12th April 2021

A three-toed sloth.

I have just been listening to the venerable, some might unkindly say senile, Sir David Attenborough wittering on about sloths, both two and three toed varieties. They are probably the most boring and useless creatures ever invented. They live in South and Central America, sleep for the most part of their lives and just hang about, upside down, high up in trees. They are picky eaters of a small selection of leaves and can travel at a max speed 0.15 mph....in emergencies. They come down from their tree once a week to have a crap (very thoughtful of them and much appreciated by ground-based creatures) where they get eaten by jaguars. They can hardly walk at all on the level. They move so slowly that their fur gets covered in green algae. Apparently they can swim, but why they bother was not explained, and get eaten by anacondas when they do so. Up in the trees they get eaten by eagles. They provide easy targets. Zoos tend not to keep sloths because, being hidden and asleep in the foliage 99% of the time, they provide absolutely no interest for visitors. I wondered "what is the point of sloths"? None, as far as I could make out, apart from providing easy take-aways for jaguars, anacondas and eagles.  After living this half-existence in 'lockdown' for so long I know how they feel.

Which brings me on to the subject of the recently appointed Archbishop of York, the Most Reverend and Right Honourable Stephen Cottrell. I have just read a newspaper magazine article on him. 

He, along with other Archbishops, lives in considerable luxury in a palace and is paid a large sum of money. What he actually does to earn it I'm not sure, apart from prancing around his cathedral in a coat of many colours. The CofE hierarchy is not so much a 'calling' as a 'managerial business' nowadays. 

Left: The Archbish. He sports a rather scruffy stubbly beard. Perhaps he is trying to look 'trendy', albeit elaborately costumed in ostentatious robes. According to the article he is very much of the 'woke' lefty-liberal persuasion and probably likes to be called 'Steve' by his friends and flock. He is part of the recent madness of the 'management-shaped' Church of England where, to save money, many parish priests (the foot-soldiers of the Church who do all the real work) have been made redundant. At the same time the hierarchy and middle-management of this Church have been increased with, you know, 'HR', Housing, Finance, Safeguarding, Diversity, Equality, Elf' 'n Safety, and other crucial departments headed by very well remunerated 'managers' (at up to 4 times the salary of a local vicar). He, Steve, is quoted as believing in 'a simpler, humbler structure' while at the same time advertising for a personal Chief-of-Staff on a salary of £90,000 pa.  The advert states: "You will be the Archbishop's chief companion, support and critical friend for developing and refining his vision, aligning his work with the dioceses and central structures of the Church of England, ensuring his time is used effectively and strategically, and making it happen". WTF! This bullshit defies belief. Why can't he do this himself, the lazy git.

He is due to stand in for the Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) in the near future while the ABC goes on a 3 month 'sabbatical'. Why, and to do what, is unclear; paddling in the sea somewhere, twiddling his thumbs and meditating perhaps? Can you imagine the Chief of the Defence Staff, for example, just deciding to take a 3 month sabbatical? The ABC has only been notable during this mad pandemic period for locking up all the parish churches, not even allowing their vicars to go in, plus the occasional bit of well photographed PR visits to hospitals. So much for taking a positive step to offer support to the humble parishioners. 'Feeble leadership' perhaps describes his contribution.

'Steve' says that while he is standing-in for the ABC nothing will change. Well, whoopee to that. I suspect I'm not alone in thinking that the CofE hierarchy now consists of a cabal of lefty-liberals including the modestly titled 'The Rt Revd Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, Bishop of London' and a black female Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, who is a BLM zealot and who recently condemned the report on racism in Britain because it doesn't accuse us of being sufficiently racist. OK, I'm not an enthusiastic church-goer but with the likes of this lot in charge I'm not likely to become one, and I fear for the future of the CofE. Hence the reference to the harmless, if useless, three-toed sloths which at least don't pretend to be important or cost us a lot of money. If one replaced 'Steve' at York, I don't suppose anything much would change except there would be a refreshing lack of bullshit spouted.

Left: Steve again, hopefully about to have a shave.

Anyway, we have now been subjected to wall-to-wall coverage of the death of Prince Philip. He was indeed a jolly good chap and embodied the type of uncomplaining, straight speaking, hardy and good-humoured characteristics typical of so many of his generation which are sadly lacking in the 'woke', wet, PC tossers mentioned above. The BBC and other media probably did go a bit 'over-the-top' with their coverage, but at least it took blasted Covid off the headlines...for a bit.

At least some pubs and restaurants have semi-opened, but I'm certainly not going to sit outside in arctic conditions and/or the pissing rain for the sake of drinking a pint of beer. Even when we are allowed (everything we want to do nowadays has to be 'allowed') to sit inside, those dreadful face-nappies will be mandatory 'when standing up' but not 'when sitting down'. This fatuous rule was amusingly criticised by someone as like "having a pissing area in a swimming pool". I can see these, often illogical, petty rules and restrictions dragging on indefinitely regardless of whether the whole population has been vaccinated (the so called miracle to get us back to normal) or not. There will always be viruses floating about, as there always have been, and the wimps, and scientists, will now say we have to protect ourselves indefinitely "for our own safety" from everything. We truly live in a totally risk averse, timid and subservient society and will be, remarkably willingly in many cases, nannied unnecessarily forever by this and future governments, fuelled by scare stories on all forms of media (especially the dreaded 'social media' platforms). Our ancestors would have laughed at us.

I have a pretty good idea of what Prince Philip's reaction to all this was, or would be!

That, and all the other bandwagons jumped on so eagerly nowadays such as #Metoo style allegations, victimhood, enforced 'equality', BLM, 'unconscious racial bias training', LGBTQI and associated issues, Greta Thunberg, diversity quotas, de-platforming, hate crime, rejecting our history and pulling down statues etc. etc, let alone x-rated monstrosities like that ghastly Oprah Windbag interview,  would be complete anathema to him. I can imagine his private comments on Ginge & Whinge contained many 'bleeps' for bad language and turned the air a very deep shade of Royal Blue. I expect he felt keen to get out of it all before he was sent doolally. 

I had a rather dull home-bound Easter Weekend and failed to do many of the jobs on my ever-lengthening list of 'things to do'. To amuse myself I tried a do-it-yourself Easter Egg hunt. This was not particularly successful. If you hide the eggs yourself, even being particularly absent minded, it doesn't provide much of a challenge to find them again.

I can't wait to escape.

PS. A plug for one of the best and most amusing books, recently published, which hits lots of nails squarely on the head. 'Stop Bloody Bossing Me About' by Quentin Letts. A must read.