A new Archbishop Of Canterbury is announced but not the Scouser we were all hoping for.

By Jove Missus, they have announced former TV Doctor, Marcus Welby MD as the new Archbishop of Canterbury. As you know, I take a great interest in religious matters, as well as politics and I was hoping that the job would go to the current Bishop Of Bradford, Mick Brains, who is a scouser. In fact i had a tenner on him. But gambling is a sin and it serves me right.

I recall the biblical passage from the Psalms of St Benny On The Hill

As David said to Issiah
Life isn't all milk and all honey
He said Issiah come forth
But Issiah came fifth
and that's how he lost all his money

My good friend the local poet and scaffolder, Reggie McCough, was preparing a celebratory poem for the announcement but at the last minute has had to do a major re-write for Bishop Welby. In doing the research for the poem, Reggie discovered that the traditional residence for the Archbishop Of Canterbury is cursed with a terrible and mysterious odour. Evensong Pong, some call it.

And so Reggie has written this piece.

SNIFFING THE BISHOP
By Reggie McCough

What on Earth can that awful smell be?

Cried the new Archbishop, Justin Welby

Don't blame Rowan Williams, he had kept it airy
but a stink still prevailed and he claimed it was Carey

But Carey once said "it's all very queer...
Can I still smell Runcie's foot odour in here?"

But Coggan said, Runcie smelled more like a pansy
No it stunk when I started, I think it was Ramsey.

But an anonymous note signed from a well wisher
Said, don't look at Michael, you can blame Geoffrey Fisher.

But Fisher recalled that during the war
William Temple had smelled it and simply wrote phwoar!

So the terrible smell, with the terrible tang
could well have belonged to old Cosmo Lang

But Cosmo blamed Davidson, who got quite irate,
blaming Temple and Benson or Archibald Tait!

And so it went on this historical link
blaming each ex Archbishop for the terrible stink

Back through Longley and Sumner and Howley and Sutton,
Cornwallis said, check what you just put your foot on

The stink was too great to just blame Thomas Secker
But Matthew Hutton, they say, was a smelly old fecker

Thomas Herring proclaimed, as his last dying wish,
Don't let them blame me ' cos my name's like a fish

And when poor Herring died in 1757
he hoped that he'd not take smell up to heaven.

He need not have worried or shed any tears
for it stunk there while vacant for 15 long years

Before 1645 to 1660,
William Laud had looked quite shifty.

He said Abbot and Bancroft had both blamed poor Whitgift.
Both swore on oath that the smelly old git whiffed.

But historians have uncovered this rare citation
from Matthew Parker, just post reformation

"In 1558 Cardinal Reginald Pole
Was called Cardinal Sin for his right smelly hole."

And it seems where he sat he would curse with the smell
Of Beelzebub's bottom - the odour from hell.

Nobody knows why he suffered this curse
But it's generally agreed that nothing smells worse

So if you think each Archbishop has a miserable gob
He's just suffering the smell that goes with the job.




Tatty Bye Everybody Tatty Bye
Be Nice To Each Other

Watch out for my review of the plans to rebuild Liverpool and The Great Tower of Custard.