The Vatican has warned Roman Catholics that buying relics is sacrilege, after reports that pieces of former Pope John Paul II’s clothes were for sale online.
The website of the Holy Diocese of Rome has been offering small pieces of John Paul II’s white cassock as part of the campaign to beatify him. But the site was inundated with requests after reports suggested pieces of the robe were available to buy.
In a similar move the Church of England has been selling clippings from Dr Rowan Williams impressive beard on ebay. Rumours that hair would be taken from other parts of his body if his beard ran out were dismissed as hairsay.
“I wouldn’t lower myself to that,” said Dr Williams.
Tags: Hearsay and Gossip·news
A journalist from Whitstable heard about Dunston from the salty seadog who delivers his supplies. The journalist hired a loud and powerful speed-boat to go out to Shivering Sands. He could smell a story and the most recent event on inWhitstable.com/news is the celebration of the Queens Golden Jubilee (true), so he needed something (anything!).
When the power boat arrived at the fort it spooked the animals and both Justice the dog, and Flump the cat, ran out along one of the unsafe, metal walkways. Dunston had been in the middle of cleaning his teeth but now, still in his tartan dressing gown, crept on his hands and knees until he could grasp Flump and drag her to safety.
At this point the reporter, raised his grey face, wiped his slippery chin and shouted, ‘Hey, you! Why are you out here? What are you doing?’
‘I’ve got the cat,’ shouted Dunston above the noise of the sea, ‘but I’ve got to go further for Justice!’
‘Father for Justice?’
‘Yes, I’m on my knees here, I can’t return to the fort until I get Justice!’The journalist had got his story and returned to the safety of dry land and some clean clothes. Here is just part of the report:A member of Fathers for Justice has vowed to remain living on the offshore Shivering Sands Fort. He states that the only thing he got in the divorce settlement was the cat and he cannot return to normal thought until he gets justice. Dressed in a revealing Spiderman outfit the man appeared to be foaming at the mouth with rage. This reporter beat a hasty retreat but watch these pages for further updates.
The Whitstable Express.
Unbelievable! Dunston makes the effort to leave ‘normal’ life and the horrors of the media find him and put him on the front page!
Tags: Dunston
The wife has been to see ’Atonement’ at the cinema and was keen to discuss the finer points of this dramatic masterpiece.
“When she gets out of the fountain her dress is so wet that you can see her front bottom. She’s got a lot of hair for a skinny girl!”
“Perhaps she’s wearing a merkin,” I suggested.
“What the hell’s a merkin?”
A merkin is a pubic wig and they have been around (and about) for over four hundred years, although I would buy a new one if you’re going to indulge yourself.
The merkin man called at the houses of the Gentry and sold his wigs to Ladies who had removed their God-given pubic hair to combat lice infestation. If the Man of the house answered the door, to spare the blushes of the Lady, the merkin man would pretend that he was selling false beards. This could lead to some embarrassing mix ups in the bedroom, especially if the couple had similar tastes and had chosen the same design and colour. In fact, Brian Rix had a play running in the West End that was based entirely on that situation. Hilarious.
The nursery rhyme, ‘Have you seen the Muffin Man?’ is actually a corruption of the original, ‘Have you seen the Merkin man, with merkins curled or plain?’
A vertical aerodynamic fin called the Merkin first saw its use in Formula One on the Williams FW22A (2000) (as named by Chief Aerodynamicist Geof Willis), although this name was changed to the more common name of “Forward Guide Vane” after higher authorities found out its true meaning.
Tags: review
Dunston rang again on Flump’s ‘phone. They’ve had a couple of cold, wet nights but they’ve found the very tower where Screaming Lord Sutch broadcast his pirate radio show from in the 1960s! That tower has interior walls and a lighting and heating system that Dunston has fixed to run off a little petrol driven generator that the fisherman sold him. They have even found the old radio equipment, instructions and some vinyl records. Who knows- Radio Dunston may be on air very soon!
The fisherman has promised to bring them supplies once a week which is just as well because neither Tesco Home Shopping nor Occado deliver that far apparently. Dunston said that he got a ‘phone call from the Tesco’s driver. He’d followed his GPS as far as Whitstable beach but then had to stop the van at the sea. There was a cetain amount of swearing on both sides especially when a rather large wave soaked the driver’s front compartment, washing his meat and veg into Chilled and Frozen.
Tags: Dunston
Timothy Brady, 33, pleaded guilty at Oxford Crown court to dangerous driving. He was clocked driving a Porsche 911 Turbo at 172 mph. That is the fastest speed ever recorded in a routine speed check in the UK.Insp Martin Percival, of Thames Valley Police, said: “All road users share a great responsibility to others and need to realise that high speed increases the chance of failing to react to an emergency, let alone take sufficient action to resolve it.” Insp Percival said the 172mph speed equated to 77m per second.
“To put that into context, the average duration of a single blink of the eye is 0.3 seconds, during which time the car would have travelled 23m (five car lengths).”
In fact the constable who recorded the incident didn’t at first realise what had happened.
“I thought I’d had some sort of stroke,” said Constable Happening, “I saw a blur of light and lost all the feeling in my toes. There was a breeze as if an angel was passing and I heard the distant sound of Johnny Cash singing ‘I Walk the Line’. It turned out that Mr Brady had run over my toes, luckily he was travelling so fast that it only left a fleeting impression.”
A more permanent impression was recorded by the speed cameras and Mr Brady faces ten weeks in jail.
Previous record holder, Jason McAllister, recorded a time of 156mph driving on the A90 between Aberdeen and Dundee.
“If you’ve ever spent time in Dundee you’ll know why he was leaving so fast,” said an Aberdonian.
Tags: news
I’ve had a ‘phone call from my mate Dunston! Things aren’t too good. It turns out that his ‘island’, Shivering Sands, is actuallly a World War II defence station! He wondered why people looked at him strangely when he mentioned the name of his new home, and now he knows why the fisherman who took him out there was laughing so hard. There are seven rusty, iron forts some still joined to each other by rickety walkways. On their four stilt legs, rising out of the waves, they look like battered old Martians from War of the Worlds. Below is a picture of them that I found on Dave Roberts site at gulbekian.plus.com. Go there have a look at some more. Imagine Dunston, Flump and Justice, inside their sleeping bag, inside their tent, inside their fort. The best you can say is that the neighbours are peaceful and the front lawn doesn’t need mowing.
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