Articles of faith (= you can't make it up)

Vienna Boys' Choir caught up in sex abuse scandals

by Roger Boyes

From Cairo

Pretty sure that, while I'm trying to finish my book over some lunch, there is a woman in a burkha breast-feeding a baby.

- JRHS, brother and A-rabist

Touched By The Unknown

- a nun from beyond?

Actual headline from this week's Sunday Times (SL).

Feeling the Roth (p.2)

The nuts and bolts of a miracle have nothing miraculous about them.

- The Legend of the Holy Drinker

Plough-shares into swords

Q Who was it who said God lives between the inhale and the exhale?

A A sniper?

The perfect mensch

[Thanks to Jewdas]

Titles gone begging - 9

Vaticanimation: a complete history of popes in celluloid.

Martin Luther King (in context)

"I have a dream. You know that one where you're falling..."

Get your lips off my rim!

Yesterday, I heard on the radio that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York have made an emergency ruling against the sharing of the chalice during Communion, in an effort to help cut down the transmission of swine flu.

I am reminded of the sad tale of Louis XVII (yes, there was: don't start with me), who died, aged 10, of scrofula - a disease the divinely-appointed Kings of France were supposed to be able to cure by the laying on of hands.

I must know

Is this a joke, or what?

Jesus (in context)

"My father's house has many rooms... All of them full of junk."

Luther (in context)

"Here I stand... It's my piles..."

Best On-line Ad, 2009

Homosexuality Forgiven
God Welcomes the Gays With His New Bible
http://www.endbible.com/

Word for word. It is not, so far as I can tell, a spoof.

Jew-ish

Swine flu. In Israel.

Seasonal cheer

CORRECTION

No it isn't.

Quote of the day so far

Courtesy of my old man:

"Oh, that's nice, isn't it? The Pope says he's sharing people's pain. That's what I like about popes."

Easter question*

If St Peter had a thing for Jesus - and maybe denied it three times - would that make him a Passion fruit?

--
* (much funnier in the original Aramaic)

Dilemma

By way of a spiritual and corporeal (and financial) rest cure, each year my parents make an effort to mark Lent with a laying off of booze.

This evening they are dining at the vicarage.

I bet you any money there'll be wine.

Messiah UPDATE

Er...

I reckon I've listened to Handel's Messiah a good thousand times now, and have long since grown comfortable with such pseudo-kinky humdingers as

"All we like sheep..."

and

"He gave his back to the smiters..."

What I hadn't picked up, though (and here I blame the impeccable diction in Harry Christophers' ace 2008 recording of the work) was the next line in that movement:

"He gave his back to the smiters... and his cheeks to them that pluckéd off the hair."

Which is just plain weird.