A three hundred year old mystery has been solved, thanks to the intervention of an Anglican bishop*. The Right Reverend Richard Dow, former Bishop of Carlisle, has identified pro-gay legislation as the cause of recent floods in the North of England.
This got me thinking. Everyone knows that Teh Gay is a recent invention, a lifestyle choice brought on by excess of liberalism, a rich diet, and compulsory universal education. But... what if....?
I'd been bothered by the mystery of Richard Kidder, ever since seeing his monument in Wells Cathedral. He was the Bishop of Bath and Wells, and he and Elizabeth, his wife, were killed when a chimney fell on them during the Great Storm of 1703. Hundreds of people were drowned in floods across the Somerset Levels, of course; but obviously they were just being punished for their everyday immorality. Somerset, eh?
But why the Bish? What dark and terrible secret did he harbour, that God's wrath should have been visited upon him? -fired by the guttering light of evangelical dogma, I dangled my Scrying Onion over a dusty copy of Pevsner, and traced its gyrations. Slowly it swung. It circled. And suddenly it came to me! I can at last reveal the awful truth.
It was all Susanna's fault.
Here she is, 'rather daringly dressed' (Pevsner), gazing up at the funerary urns of her parents, on the monument which she erected to their memory. Susanna never married; she spurned the advances of Dr Claver Morris, despite his income, his town house and carriage, and the liberally-waxed moustachios which he was wont to twirl suggestively during Richard's sermons. She died childless, in East Grinstead.
The inference is clear. Susanna was evidently a lesbian.
And there she is, flaunting herself in a cathedral! I think the time has come to drag this monument to lasciviousness and vice out into the cathedral close, and destroy it with big hammers and fire and vinegar. Perhaps we can invite the Right Reverend Richard Dow to lead the way on this one? Come the hour, come the man. Pitchforks! Fiery brands! Aux armes, citoyens!
*It was five years ago, but a flood's a flood in my opinion. Thanks, Liz, for pointing that out!
Think the picture's from the 1607 Bristol Channel tsunami (so called), but as the Levellers all have webbed feet (me too), they must have been indulging in vice for successive decades.
ReplyDeleteThat'll learn 'em.
Rains due to gay folk? I just love it when people forget their façade and shoot themselves in the foot. Peace and love.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the vinegar will clean up the rest of the statue to a nice, shiny tit and knee standard?
ReplyDeleteOh ****! Have I been the cause of all this recent rain hereabouts?
ReplyDeleteThat clears that up then! :)
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that when the sun shines, this sort of thing happens:
ReplyDeletehttp://farm5.staticflickr.com/4025/4700644868_702c6b16be.jpg
And God hates that sort of thing.
More of it here! (Warning - don't look if you're god.) (Sorry, if You're God.)
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjqRXEGM
You're right, Deb, of course; couldn't find a pic of the Great Storm in Somerset. Maybe should paint one!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if he has a facade, though, Bella? -it seems possible that he is consistently like that... which is an odd thought; opinions better suited to the Quivering Brethren than high Anglicanism...
I imagine the vinegar would make her dissolve, Mal, left to its own devices; I was thinking of Hannibal crossing the Alps and using fire and vinegar to crack apart the rocks that barred their progress. Always thought it a bit odd that an army should be so liberally provisioned with vinegar.
Yes, Caroline. It was you! I bet there's a big finger pointing down at your house now, from the clouds!
Glad to be of service, Gretel!
How awful, Matt! We say, down with that sort of thing. Of course.