Guest Blogger

The regular 'writer' of this blog is currently laid up in bed, receiving Pimms infusions as a result of severe bruising to the ego following a game of speed-croquet. At short notice, his great friend the Very Reverend Ghallahad Thistlebow has kindly agreed to post today's blog entry.

As a curate, I'm often asked: 'what is worse, beastly ghastlyness or ghastly beastliness?' Well, without a doubt, it is beastly ghastlyness.

On occasion, one is beastly. I recall on various occasions when I have had to be beastly. Often it is to close family members and one is beastly to them in such a way that would result in a very serious physical assault if one treated a stranger like that.

Occasionally one has to be ghastly. It's no good, but there it is. There have been times, and I'm not proud of them, when I have been ghastly. Most recently, I had to help several tourists who had arrived in the village and asked for directions to a nearby town. I confidently directed them back to the nearest motorway where, I was sure, they would have to reach Glasgow before the opportunity to turn around presented itself. Naturally I would have scrounged myself for such a beastly act if I had not considered it to be God's will. This being the case, I had the verger scrounge himself instead.

Very occasionally, one has to indulge in an act of ghastly beastliness. I well recall one parent's day at school when a Mrs X asked about her son. I recalled the boy well, and remembered in particular his screams as we had crucified him one evening for whistling on the Large Quad, which was strictly forbidden. I looked at Mrs X, standing there in her green coat, red hat and brown shoes and thought of her poor dead tortured son, now lying in a shallow grave on the six yard line of the ruggar field and it was then I committed my act of ghastly beastliness by stoving her head in with a cricket bat for wearing green on Parents' Day. Later, I learned she had a medical condition and had a note from matron. It was this unpardonable act that drove me into the arms of a number of prostitutes, drink, drugs and finally the church.

But beastly ghastliness - no, as an act it is unforgivable, and damp.

Many thanks for the booze soaked best chum for allowing me to dictate this note to his 'blog-bitch' of, as I believe they are sometimes called, secretary.

Toodle Pip.

V. Rev G. Thistlebow