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Vicars to to ditch dog collars and wear harnesses instead



A clergy cruelty campaign group has won a major concession from the Church of England after years of lobbying. Their campaign centered around the danger of strangulation from a dog collar compared to the far less harmful restraint from wearing a harness.


The campaign followed the sad death from strangulation of Rev Matthew Hoddell who when escaping naked from a family home after the wife returned home earlier than expected, scaled the 8’ garden fence and may have escaped unnoticed if the lead attached to the dog collar hadn’t become trapped between the fence pickets.


The CoE accepted that had Rev Hoddell been wearing a harness, the lead would likely have become trapped between the pickets, but the harness would have prevented the airway restriction that led to his gruesome death.


Both the father and mother of the boy the vicar was visiting have expressed their appreciation that a common sense decision had finally been taken.


image from pixabay



First published 15 May 2022


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Met to co-opt clerics to CID


With the Metropolitan Police struggling to win over the hearts and minds of the public, let alone solve slam-dunk cases, they have decided to take a leaf out of regional police force methods and co-opt clerics to assist CID detectives.


'We're aware that some less populated areas have had considerable success by allowing Catholic Priests and C of E Vicars assist in murder enquiries,' said a Met spokesman today.  'Indeed, if my research is correct, the clerics seem to find the important piece of incriminating evidence in most cases, despite zero forensic or investigative training,' he added.


He noted there were no known examples of Imams or Sikh scripture readers assisting the police, then qualified that by adding 'in an investigative role, anyway,' but said the Met were open to considering them. Especially if the BBC were to produce any more hard hitting documentaries like the ones he had seen based in the criminal hotbeds of Kembleford and the inner city rough area called Grantchester.


'You can see how effective the clerics are if you use iPlayer on catch-up, possibly on Dave,' he said. 


Unfortunately the spokesman wasn't available for follow-up interview questions due to disappearing shortly after a meeting in his Chief Superintendents' office.  Two nuns and a recently defrocked priest are helping the Met to get to the bottom of the mystery, and the full investigation is expected to be shown on ITV3 later this year.



Image credit: perchance.org

Nation's faithful weep for joy over appointment of new Archbishop


"It had been nearly a year that the Church of England was without an Archbishop of Canterbury and I thought that if the position were to be left vacant for a single more day, our dear nation would crumble into the sea," said 525-year-old Moira Bonkers of Fading Light nursing home in Broadstairs, shedding tears of pure joy onto her hymnal.


"But now God has wrought His wonders and we have a new incumbent on the Throne of St Augustine to lead all our souls to heaven," continued Bonkers, as church bells pealed inside her head.


"And I do so respect the Right Reverend Thomas Cranmer as a great moral and spiritual leader for our age," she added.


On being told the new Archbishop is not Cranmer but a former NHS bureaucrat who constantly wears a plastic laminated ID tag around her neck saying that her name is Mullally or something, Bonkers said: "Yeah, right. Like that's who God wanted  - Sarah from Personnel."




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