Bring Me My Chariot of Fizzle

The Archbishop of Canterbury has retaliated to the Enemy's blather on Thought for the Day with his usual heady mix of triteness and tripe. He hinted that the material consequences of the economic crisis should be "fairly shared", which is exactly what Daveybloke's Cuddly Coalition says will happen; he observed that there is "a lasting sense the most prosperous have yet to shoulder their load", which has resulted in a lack of confidence that can be mended by working together and thinking carefully and imaginatively about the forthcoming royal wedding. According to Britain's leading liberal newspaper, this "might make uncomfortable reading for the coalition"; well, perhaps it might, if half a pint of lukewarm sugar-water on top of one's Christmas dinner had the power of causing indigestion.

The Archbishop then went on to rhapsodise about the wonders of Christian marriage, which would be cause for celebration even among lesser mortals, but which are particularly wonderful in the case of a royal wedding, because "any and every Christian marriage is a sign of hope, since it is a sign and sacrament of God's own committed love". It is not entirely obvious from previous such sacraments, involving the likes of Charles, Diana, Andrew, Sarah and Camilla, which partner plays God and which the world; but perhaps the matter can be clarified by less humble theologians than myself. There were marriages "where something extraordinary has happened because of the persistence of one of the parties, or where faithfulness has survived the tests of severe illness or disability or trauma". Thus the Archbishop extolled the virtues of stalking and implied that serious physical and psychological problems were benign experiments designed to bring couples closer together.

Undoubtedly the virtues of persistence, courage and fidelity are unique to those marriages which have been mumbled over in a big creepy building rather than barbarously signed up to in a registry office; an example or two might have been salutary, but regrettably the Archbishop does not seem to have named names. He did, as a faithful supporter of the Reverend Tony's little crusades, confess to finding himself "deeply moved" by the sense of solidarity between hired killers and their relatives, although the good family men who persecute Christians in places like Zimbabwe and Iraq ought very likely to be ashamed of themselves.