Category Archives: Yewmah

The funny stuff

ST MARVIN’S-UP-THE-CREEK NEWSLETTER #24

STATE OF THE PARISH SERMON (Transcript)

It is of the utmost importance that we work together as a congregation to iterate the next iteration of my parish so that this reiteration addresses the critical issues of our time: climate change; inequality; Brexit but, mainly, doing something about people who disagree with me. We, of course, must also ensure our parish partners in business are making lots of money. It is therefore a priority that my influence, as a parish leader, extends into inclusive, cross -organisational work and dialogue with other city leaders and change makers. This requires a new form of parish leadership by exciting thematic boards where I can talk about issues at great length with members of the congregation I have personally selected because they will do what I say no matter how stupid.

Another purpose of us parish leaders and change makers is to regularly fly half way around the globe to listen to speeches by exciting former global leaders scratching out a living on the lecture circuit such as my new close friend, Al Gore. This is how change makers can ensure a more diverse demographic is being reached and their desire to join our iterative future parish journey enabled. Sometimes this will mean many of the little people in the congregation will need to be entirely ignored for the greater good of the global spiritual goals we all share. Let’s celebrate your sacrifice the way Christ celebrated the wealth creators, the innovators and the creators.

Often, our important shared priorities may find me associating with vastly wealthy old men or with global corporations. Sometimes I must join high-level trade delegations to the US with our local business friends where I may also find time to commune with my mentor the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon. Let’s now recall and celebrate his wisdom on the subject of international travel, “a plane is God’s way of making you a bird”. Indeed, it is. So what say now the negative naysayers with their clickbait of pointless point-scoring on Twitter and 30 second soundbites of opposition from the pews? The silence is deafening in here isn’t it? Not least because Ms Townsend and anyone else from parish’s OFSTED ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy have not been invited.

As Gracie Fields once said, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and as Michelle Obama says, “when I’m low I get high”. The state of this parish and my mind is strong. Woof! Woof!

The Vicar.

ST MARVIN’S-UP-THE-CREEK NEWSLETTER #22

Could confused parishioners with low performing children who lack leadership qualities please note that, while I may be Chair of the St Snoot’s Academy, the parish’s OFSTED ‘outstanding’ high performing religious secondary school, I can in no way be held responsible for any of the entirely unforeseen consequences of the budgetary transformation of SEND resources there. This has been confirmed by Mr Stubbersfield from Bath who was recently appointed at great expense by the school’s executive leadership team on a consultancy basis to develop a convincing alternative narrative for the disaster.

This means blame for the closure of the specialist SEND unit at the school as part of a drive toward improved outcomes efficiency is not something that can be laid at my door. Neither am I in any way responsible for placing SEND children in inappropriate mainstream school settings without support. Nor should I be reproached for any alleged upgrading in so-called ‘off-rolling’ at the school as a result of unavoidable errors. All of this has been confirmed by Mr Stubbersfield deploying various insightful statistics at a variety of illuminating meetings whose minutes are not available for very complicated children’s safeguarding reasons that need not concern us here.

I therefore suggest that Ms Townsend and the ragbag of troublemakers, terrorists and rumour mongers from the parish’s OFSTED ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy who continue to encourage confused parishioners with low performing children at St Snoot’s to blame me for the decline in SEND provision now desist from this nonsense. Instead parishioners need to accept our Parish Committee member for Children’s Worship, Jacqui Jensen from Devon’s vivid explanation, devised with the help of Mr Stubbersfield, that a kind of mix between paralysis and panic has taken hold at St Snoot’s for entirely unforeseen reasons that will never be explained but are clearly not in any way the fault of anyone responsible.

Sometimes strong leadership means accepting that events are not of our making but are part of God’s larger plan. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “If God’s Kingdom you are creating on Earth is looking a bit schlonky then blame the good lord using a vaguely relevant biblical quote”.

Going forward, let me assure unfortunate parishioners with low performing children at St Snoot’s that we will be creating an exciting new SEND strategy to replace our last strategy very soon. The ‘quick wins’ we are urgently developing to placate any especially sharp elbowed parents with access to solicitors may even be implemented as soon as next year. In the meantime any of our children’s suffering needs to be understood in context. Namely that God has created a kind of mix between paralysis and panic at St Snoot’s and for such mysterious work the lord can only be praised and celebrated.

Amen.

ST MARVIN’S-UP-THE-CREEK NEWSLETTER #21

The usual suspects in my congregation have now started making sub-optimal noise about my infrequent trips to the United States to bear witness alongside my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon. These visits to the Pastor Loon’s southern California ranch with the two swimming pools (one with an impressive outdoor bar area), a gym, a state-of-the-art home cinema and, of course, the breathtaking  Soft Porn Renaissance Chapel styled by Jeff Koons are vitally important prayer retreats. Yes, I’m often accompanied by my communications specialist Mr Slocombe and the slightly nutty Miss Molano, our church’s Faith Advisor, and, yes, some mainly harmless mildly satanic practices led by Pastor Loon and very enthusiastically embraced by Miss Molano do sometimes occur. All that is happening, however, is that myself and your senior church leaders are taking the opportunity, just four or five times a year, to get an ecumenical buff and a spiritual replenish. All to better deliver your religious needs at St Marvin’s. What is there to complain about here?

Some of you have raised the issue of Pastor Loon’s attitude to abortion after that unfortunate report in the Washington Post last month regarding his widely misinterpreted ‘genocidal holocaust’ remarks. Isn’t it easy for journalists to take the complex ideas underpinning our faith, remove any context and then twist our wise words so that they become what they may not mean? But let me assure you that as your Reverend and a Christian I remain substantially committed to an idea of abortion as practice. Can I be any more unequivocal than that? Some of you have also queried aspects of the Reverend Loon’s lifestyle such as his five wives, his private jet, his close links to the arms trade and his recent claim that “Climate change is a Jewish-Communist plot”. To quote Pastor Loon, “I’m Only My Brother’s Keeper If My Brother Is My Sheep” and Pastor Loon is clearly not a sheep. So what have his personal lifestyle choices got to do with me? Please, let’s not covet thy neighbours’ lives. Let’s instead live our simple lives better unto the glory of god.

Finally, I have received some negative comments regarding the Pastor Loon’s fantastic recent book “How Big Money and the Markets Can Move Mountains”, especially, his claim that Jesus has risen and walks among us in the form of the derivatives markets, fractional reserve banking and high levels of consumer debt. Let’s face it, I’m no economist and you’re certainly no economist so how can we possibly sit in judgement on the Pastor’s new and exciting ‘Corporate Free Market Theology’ that’s seizing headlines and transforming our religious communities? “Judge not and you will not be judged,” as the Pastor preached to me recently. The wisest of wise words from the wisest of the wise. Amen.

The Vicar

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #20

Opportunistic campaigners from that notorious hotbed of anti-semitism, the failing ‘Needs Improvement’ Dave Spart Academy run by racists and transphobes, have continued to generate a lot of unnecessary noise regarding the entirely essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski from London when she resigned as Parish Secretary in 2017. As you all know, Miss Klonowski publicly explained she was doing the Christian thing and resigning to care for her tragically ill and dying parents and wasn’t involved in bullying anyone, anywhere, ever. The Christian community of St Marvin’s therefore should be celebrating Miss Klonownowki’s resilient selflessness and my administrative efficiency, not focussing on the minor material matter of money.

There’s a number of other things that the congregation needs to understand about this essential and lawful sustainable remuneratory consideration I handed to Miss Klownowski. Firstly, the whole issue is really boring. Miss Klonowski worked for the parish. Then one day she didn’t and we gave her a purely contractural payment to go away. This was all absolutely correct as has been confirmed by the high-level verbal legal advice acquired for me by our former interim Parish Committee member Miss McGeachie from Peterborough. You may recall Miss Klonowski personally appointed Miss McGeachie on a tax-efficient basis in 2017 to streamline the Parish Committee’s leadership function. Miss McGeachie sustainably delivered this streamline on target and to budget as well as enabling top-notch legal advice for me from someone in Wales whose name now escapes me.

The second consideration you therefore need to understand is that I was acting on sound legal advice. The fact that our former accountant, Mr Bdo, a foreigner from Vietnam, says in his weird and unnecessary report that this advice was wrong can safely be discounted as his firm has now been deservedly fired from St Marvin’s and replaced by Mr Grant Thornton, from a local accountancy firm on the High Street. Not only is Mr Thornton auditing our church’s accounts this year but he has also taken on some complex consultancy work at a very competitive rate to map an improvement journey for our church’s accounting practice. And Mr Thornton hasn’t produced any reports criticising me or anyone else in the parish leadership team. Proving beyond reasonable doubt that this whole issue is politically mischievous noise from opportunistic campaigners.

The final thing to understand is that Miss Klonowski’s remuneratory arrangements were nothing to do with me anyway. Miss McGeachie assisted by interim Parish Committee member, Miss Beardmore from Shropshire, navigated Miss Klownowski’s leadership exit journey back in 2017. So those saying the buck stops with me have clearly never operated a buck and have no idea where it should stop or, even, how to stop one. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “ask not where the buck stops for you but where you can stop the buck when confronted with trenchant criticism”.

Let’s now move on and focus on our resilient spiritual leadership journey together that binds us.

The Vicar

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #19

You may have read in the local newspapers that the scourge of institutional racism is stalking the pews of St Marvin’s. The first thing to understand about all this is that none of this is my fault. Neither is it the fault of the executive head of the Parish Committee, the entirely non-racist Mr Jackson, or any other of my highly competent and equalities-positive senior leaders of our inclusive church project. This is a fact confirmed in a secret report you don’t need to see that I commissioned from my friend, The Very Reverend Holy Poonami

This has all been explained to Mr Norton, the editor of the St Marvin’s Post and one of our parish’s outstanding social liberals and anti-racists who assures me he has a lot of black friends. He now firmly agrees with myself and the Holy Poonami that the blame for all this racism at St Marvin’s lies firmly within the congregation, especially among those occupying the middle pews on Sundays. And rest assured, our inclusive parish leadership team are fully dedicated to efficiently shifting the blame for this problem on to these people as quickly as possible now that the newspapers have found out.

Further strategic responses you can expect from a wholly innocent and unaware inclusive parish leadership team will be an ongoing commitment to building a diverse parish by repeating language such as ‘inclusive’, ‘diverse’ and ‘outward looking’ as much as possible. This should allow inclusive parish leaders to continue to flourish despite acutely embarrassing accusations from the media.

In partnership with Mr Jackson and the senior parish leadership team, I will also continue to regularly publish waffle about our organisational values; ramble on about a parish journey of continuous improvement and, naturally, improve the robustness of our all-important equality impact assessments that nobody ever looks at.

You will also be excited to hear that the inclusive leadership team will ensure that the next Parish survey – due out soon – includes a section dedicated to you better understanding our outward-looking parish culture and religious environment. This will specifically address issues of fairness, equality, inclusion and diversity that many parishioners are struggling to spout as professionally as our inclusive parish leaders can.

Alongside our mission to place the blame elsewhere, I’m sure you will agree this is a hugely robust response from your inclusive parish leadership team. As my mentor the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says in his new ‘Book of Loon’, “When caught red-handed, profess thy undying innocence, buy in a report and blame those who can’t answer back”.

Finally a small word about these so-called “whistleblowers” who spoke to the press. In future can anyone identifying as a “whistleblower” contact the inclusive parish leadership team immediately? We are all extremely skilled in managing these problems in line with our inclusive parish leadership goals and, often, our inclusive goals conflict with the goals of the ungodly free press. Please note that “whistleblowers” who fail to comply with this simple instruction may come to regret it.

Hopefully, with such a robust inclusive leadership response now in place, the parish can move swiftly along and not dwell on this overblown media confection for too much longer.

The Vicar

‘DAVE’ OF WESTBURY-ON-TRYM ROTARY CLUB DECLARES HIMSELF BRISTOL’S INTERIM MAYOR

By Lucy Balderdash for the Nazi Post

A surprise YouTube video announcement was made today as a hitherto unknown ‘Dave’ stepped forward and declared himself as interim elected Mayor of Bristol, declaring his intention to ‘restore democracy’ to the benighted city.

‘Far too long have we’ve languished under the oppression of the dictator in charge of Bristol City Council,’ said Dave. ‘The state of crisis in the city is intolerable. I call on BCC’s departmental managers to immediately transfer their loyalty to me, and in return I’ll grant those who do a pardon once I take office.’

Consternation at this announcement ensued at College Green, where the Revd. Rees shortly appeared with his response in a fanfare in front of the Counts Louse, flanked by his redoubtable deputy Asher Craig. ‘I will not stand down to this impostor,’ he said. ‘I alone was elected to implement Tory austerity in Bristol, not this “Dave”. I’ve done the job Tessa [Theresa May] gave me well. It’s nothing but an unconstitutional coup organised by my persecutors: those allegedly-homeless racist vagabonds in the Bear Pit and disgusting anarchists working together.’

Dave however claimed to have rather received the tweeted support of other council Mayors including the new Mayor of South Kensington Council, Steve Bannon, and from Bristol’s Merchant Venturers via Mayor-No-More George Ferguson. ‘This proves that not only UK councils but also the international business community is solidly behind me,’ he said. ‘Donald Trump added his tweet of support this afternoon.’

Bristol’s city centre homeless were asked for their opinion of the crisis. ‘Can you give me your coat?’ said a shivering man in a blanket down Broadmead. ‘I’m fucking freezing to death out here.’

ST MARVIN’S-UP-THE-CREEK PARISH NEWS #18

Alongside my good self, no doubt all sensible parishioners are extremely concerned by the huge amount of pointlessly negative comments made on social media about me. These comments are consistently racist, rude and less than helpful towards an innovative black leader of a creative parish with an increasing international profile.

Things have now taken a turn for the worse with some parishioners even daring to hang  ‘Paul Smith for Vicar’ banners outside of their homes and then share the pictures on social media. I have therefore decided now is the time to take a very serious stand and destroy the evil scourge of negative parishioners destroying sensible debate on social media. It’s what God would have wanted. As my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “The Book of Thin Skin sayeth that thee who message against me, is the racist enemy of thy lord and shall pay now in media smears and then in the hereafter.”

I am particularly obsessed and concerned – as, no doubt, are you, the sensible silent majority of parishioners supporting global reach parish leadership – about the Twitter account @st-marvin’s_citizen. He has been spreading rudeness and alternative news about the parish and especially myself for many years. I have therefore tasked our head verger, Mr Walsh, with taking this social media ringleader down. A task Mr Walsh is eminently experienced in after his time up north working at St Wakefield-the-Pederast’s-Friend, where he attempted to protect child rapists from justice at a cost of just one million pounds and a humiliating climbdown just prior to a high profile court case.

Results orientated Mr Walsh has already employed a close friend as a consultant at a highly competitive rate to investigate the Citizen. So if you see a confused posh twit in a pin-stripe suit who doesn’t appear to have the foggiest idea what he’s doing around the place, be sure to guide him towards the cash office so he can pick up his pay packet. Rest assured, the Citizen will be stopped and positivity, sanity and sense restored to the parish’s social media messaging. “If not,” says Mr Walsh, “we can always blame the Citizen account on Ms Townsend and her rabble at the Dave Spart Academy like we do everything else.”

Finally, following the vicious racist graffiti aimed at my good self, discovered in the vestry after last Wednesday’s mother and toddler group, I have no choice but to step up security at this week’s Sunday service. All bags will be searched and any ‘Paul Smith for vicar’ placards removed for your own safety. We will also be inviting certain congregation members, mainly those from the Dave Spart Academy and from notorious racist hotspots south of the parish, to view the service by videolink from the nearly-completed Church Hall complex.

The sermon will be delivered by myself working in partnership with senior editorial staff from the BBC and the St Marvin’s Post. Our theme is ‘are Commies and Corbynites racist?’ and all my friends and supporters are especially welcome. Front row pew tickets are available after careful vetting from my office.

See you there!

The Vicar

ST MARVIN’S PARISH NEWS #17

No doubt you all saw the photographs of me all over social media doing my recent skydive for charity? I’m sure you all agree that these wonderful photos of me – available across all social media channels and available for use by the press – were far better photos than anything our Assistant Vicar, Mr Smith has ever managed.

Mr Smith may be constantly filling up your social media timelines with silly photos of himself but my Head of Vicar’s Office, Mr Slocombe, assures me “the optics are good” as I’m far better looking than Mr Smith and my sermons “knock Smith’s out of the vestry”. So let that be the end of any further debate about Mr Smith.

There’s also a lot of noise out there in the pews at present – no doubt encouraged by Ms Townsend and her rabble at the Dave Spart Academy – regarding my energy generating windmill that was attractively attached to the church spire a few years ago. Yes, it’s made a loss for the last three years. Yes, it will make a loss next year and the year after that but we’ve got to look at the social, cultural and economic machinery behind the project systemically here.

My windmill is a fabulous parish landmark as well as being a stirring, iconic beacon of intentional ecumenical and economic outcomes at St Marvin’s. Can you believe that our church is viewed, even as far away as Malaysia, as an ambitious, forward-thinking church able to unlock key challenges? That’s what this windmill is really all about. Our very own hi-tech mechanical gateway to global innovation that aims to ensure interdependence of social and economic outcomes.

We need to seek to see beyond simple, worldly, material benefits to our parish and look at the bigger spiritual picture we can paint for the world through parish innovation. Besides, as my mentor, the Texan psychotic preacher and notorious anti-communist homophobe, the Pastor Righteous Loon says, “a failing church business can always be set against a personal tax liability if you have the right accountant”. So I’ll be visiting a chap in the new year recommended to me by Mr Molton, who’s been providing the parish committee with excellent advice regarding land use for some time now, while receiving a highly competitive retainer.

Finally, can I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year? And please remember, don’t go giving any money or presents to the homeless at this time of year. Contact the authorities and get the destitute and vulnerable through the gateway of innovation and on to a positive pathway in one of my friend Mr Ingerslev’s innovative state-funded doss houses.

By filling up his doss houses, Mr Ingerslev is able to meet key challenges and targets as outlined in his funding agreements. And, surely that’s the type of positive action compatible with the true spirit of Christmas we seek here at St Marvin’s?

The Vicar.