Saturday, October 30, 2010

Humorous Thoughts 2

One of the most amusing people I have ever met is Bishop Colin Buchanan. As my college principal at St John's he managed entertainment with intellectual rigour. In his worship lectures and seminars we all did our preparation and reading. We knew that the grilling we would get would be merciless if we didn't. His ability to expose the false arguments or a lack of proper thought was remarkable. Tuition by sarcasm maybe wouldn't work for all of you but it worked for me and I loved it.

Should he read this post it is likely that the comment box will be correcting 'Tilley English.' It's my style Colin but hey, I'm happy to hear your points. He edited the first booklet I ever wrote (Grove Evangelism 16). No-one read it but it wasn't his fault. I chose a stupid title.

His college lunchtime notices were also the epitome of concision, brevity and if possible, humour. Once, noticing that the whole college was in a giggly mood, he stood up and suggested that he would like to do a survey on the relative humour-merits of various words which may or may not be funny. He then chose a list of words which were not at all amusing, ending with deaconess which brought the house down.

So if you don't subscribe to the Church Times go and buy a copy of this week's issue simply for Bishop Colin's letter deconstructing the ridiculous reasoning one of our bishops is giving for 'going over to Rome.' It's priceless. The Church Times is also one of the most entertaining reads if you enjoy the seriousness with which people describe problems you will never have.

What is the correct way to fold a crosier?

How do we remove earthworms from the churchyard?

What do I do if my vicar is female?

I have, of course, made all these up. They are less weird than the real ones. Trust me.

Some random prejudices to conclude.

Never, ever wear a cartoon tie unless you are a surgeon in a children's hospital.
Never, ever, ever wear cartoon socks.
Only wear entertaining T-shirts once then destroy them.
(All three of these come under the heading of  'I only know one joke'. You don't want to make that widely known.)
Don't imagine you will ever hear anything amusing from someone who says they have a good sense of humour.

I'll try and write something serious next.

1 comment:

Doug Chaplin said...

It was a good letter, wasn't it? Vintage COB.