"The Loose Canon"

Further to my package last week, which included Damian Thompson's book "The Loose Canon", I thought you might like to check out Damian's brilliant religious blog "Holy Smoke" which chronicles religious follies in Britain.

His latest postings include the implications of the vote on women bishops in the Anglican Communion.

[And today's posting, Bill, reads this headline: "Church of England Bishop Will Lead Anglicans to Rome" -- SW]

He declares that the Anglican Church is now plainly, nakedly, indisputably Protestant and there is no room for the likes of the late (super-Catholic) Brian Brindley anywhere in it. Also any hopes of corporate reunion with the Catholics or Orthodox are as dead as Brian, so ARCIC is now RIP. But no doubt it will carry on twitching for many years to come, as the theologians involved don't want to look utter fools and they might otherwise be up to even worse mischief.

Damian is highly unpopular with the British bishops as he is an independent voice on a secular newspaper which they cannot control. So when he explains that Anglican clergy, concerned about the latest change and exploring conversion to Rome, very wisely bypassed the English bishops and went straight to the Vatican, it will make him even less welcome at Westminster Cathedral.

I can't remember if Damian's book makes its title clear, but in the Royal Navy a "loose cannon", in the days of wooden sailing warships, was a cannon which was not properly tied down to the deck. So in bad weather, or if it was fired, it might roll all over the place and cause all manner of havoc and destruction. Much as Brian loved to do........

Guilty Unless Proven Innocent

(From Stan) Bill sent me a huge package of news clippings, magazines, and travel memorabilia from his recent trips. We had to rent a fork lift to get it out of the mail box. Included in Bill's package was a recent edition of PRIVATE EYE (the British satire rag), with a picture of Pres. Bush shaking hands during his "Farewell Tour" with the new British PM Brown. They share a text bubble, "I hear your leaving office soon." I asked Bill if PRIVATE EYE was related to PUNCH, a favorite rag of mine from my meanderings in libraries during high school and college.


Dear Stan,

Glad that you received the package OK. I posted it at Reading's central post office on Saturday 28th June, so if it arrived in Michigan on Thursday 3rd July that's pretty good going by both mail services.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali is an Anglican bishop and, hailing from Pakistan, has a rather more realistic view of Islam than many British clergy.

Punch was a completely separate publication from "Private Eye" which came on the scene only around 1960. Punch dated from the 19th century. I use the past tense because Punch went out of business a few years ago, despite expensive attempts to revive it. "Private Eye" is showing some of the symptoms of advancing years and respectability. It used to be mercilessly funny in its early years, but has lost much of its edge.

Part of the problem is our British libel laws. As numerous commentators have noted, every crook on the planet prefers to sue for libel in British courts because of the legal bias against newspapers and magazines. The onus in a British libel case is on the publication to prove the truth of its allegations - not on the crook to prove the falsity of the allegations. So you get perverse judgments against publications which would be laughed out of court anywhere else in the civilised world.

Also distributers of a publication, as well as the publishers, can be hit for damages. So I understand that W H Smith, the biggest distributer of magazines in Britain, have their lawyers check out every issue of Private Eye before it hits their shops. This must have a restraining effect on revelations. If you want British humour for nothing, I suggest "The Daily Mash" on line, which was launched as a British equivalent of the US "Onion". I particularly loved their recent article declaring "Cannabis worse than the Nazis", where they explained that cannabis had become far more powerful and dangerous since the present generation of British politicians gave up using it.

As a footnote to the booklet on the Italian Chapel in Orkney, the local Orkney paper had an article recalling a second Italian POW chapel at another camp on Orkney which was similarly built inside a Nissen hut and beautifully decorated. It was dismantled after the end of WW2, though possibly some of the artwork might survive. The writer suggested that the reason the present chapel has been lovingly conserved by local Orcadians over 60 years in a harsh climate is because it was unique. If both Italian chapels had survived the war, maybe both would have been abandoned to decay.