Allegedly the subject was raised by Brown during his meeting with His Holiness the other week – leading HH to adopt the posture of all important people listening to Gordon Brown; nodding and politely agreeing to consider things while inwardly remarking how bad his breath was.

My initial reaction was incredulity. The Prime Mentalist was grabbing at straws to try and position himself next to any leader more in control than he. The Pope would surely never consider creating an unique exception to a global ban on clergy in politics for the well intentioned but surely unexceptional Cormac?

That said it was wryly noted in the clubhouse that some members thought Cormac already sat in the Lords’ with the rest of the Anglican Bishops. 

But beyond naughty humour little was made of it.

This week’s offer of a knighthood by Brown to the ageing and ailing whiskey priest of the US Senate, Ted Kennedy began to  sow serious seeds of doubt. As Blair sold honours to the highest bidder, Brown appears to be handling them out as souvenirs to foreigners.

I took it upon myself to make some phonecalls and do some delving. Having bought several pints in the Sport and Rec for some characters working for those left of the aisle, I can confirm the rhumour. Cormac has been offered a peerage.

It seems this was done following considerable pressure from the Labour Catholic caucus in the Commons who feel that some increased tribalism might save a few of the more marginal seats around the North West, especially in parts of Manchester.

I have no information about how His Holiness has taken to the idea but one can only assume the problem of having two “pre-eminent” Catholic Bishops in London would be sub-optimal and the precedent worrying.

The liberal “Spirit of Vatican II” Church, the Church of all-powerful Episcopal Conferences and Synods, the Church which seems to hold Ecumenism and Environmentalism to be doctrines as important for salvation as the Real Presence, the Church of the sleek and sinuous Cardinals who saw the light in the 1960s: has realised that it is in great danger of being swept aside by a Benedictine revolution, and that if they cannot capture the young people whom John Paul II made his own, and who seem to respond as well to Benedict XVI, they are doomed.

The weapon they have chosen is to accuse the Pope of one of the great secular sins: Holocaust denial.  It shows their desperation: they have no other choice, for how could they attack the Pope’s Catholicsm.  So they have ubnleashed forces they do not own and cannot control. 

The battle is about the Catholic Church’s place in a realigned Christianity: if the SSPX becomes a part of the Church, and Catholic-Orthodox relations improve, the return to the traditional course will become ever more marked; and as orthodoxy is reestablished within the Catholic Church, those whose views are more heterodox will find themselves increasingly isolated.

So of course they are fighting; but they do not understand what they are unleashing, and what will bring them down: we do.

Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.  May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan and all the evil spirits who roam through the world seeking the ruin of souls.

It is that time of year when one major sartorial season ends and another begins. As the nights close in and one feels more and more like there are ice cubs in one’s shorts during the stroll to work it is the time to bargain hunt. I am often shocked by how well one can dress buying Jermyn Street tailoring out of season.

As I rule I allow myself one new suit and jacket a year and trousers as my wife directs. Combine this with a shirt turnover of about two or three a year and there is all a man should need.  A total of around £450 per year (yes it is that cheap providing one waits six months to debut anything) sees me better dressed than my wages suggest I should be, and more over the suits I buy will last me decades.

This I compare to the snuffling oicks I see dressed for comparable prices by the likes of M&S and Burton and stand astounded. Branded clothing rightly costs over the odds, only the witless pay to wear someone else’s name across their chest, but people who pay £250 for a suit that looks flame retardant simply show laziness and lack of discernment. Quality, especially anonymous quality, often comes very cheap.

Perhaps the real root of this discrepancy is motivation rather than taste. I suspect most of the clothes sold in London are not bought with a purpose in mind (except perhaps the odd shiny grey two piece for that first court appearance) but rather just for the glutinous desire to purchase.

“Retail therapy” is a phrase I hear women in particular use more and more without irony, the idea that there is something cathartic in just buying things. Absent an openness to grace or knowledge of the Sacraments people genuinely seek fulfilment in oddly cut cardigans and lurid checked shirts, not to wear there but just seeking satisfaction in their purchase. Indeed this I view as being the main driving force behind the more ridiculous stylings we see in the high street; constant purchasing requires constant novelty and as a result fashions become ever more deranged and sensationalist until we get to a point where children run about with profanity scribbled across their clothes.

The result has seen the once best dressed island in the word become the prey of junk food tailoring such as H&M, Top Shop and the famous Primark – where women have been hospitalised competing to buy tee shirts they will most likely bin in a week.  

The myriad of cackling Sharon’s I see boarding the Underground at Bond Street, clutching their branded bin liners full of discount nylon exhibit all the signs of classic addiction; manic momentary highs followed by sulking melancholy.

The mission of the Church to offer a seasonal message of real value, a faith that actually satisfies and a hope that truly sustains is clear. But perhaps also there is something to be said for the little things, like dressing better.  

In Victorian England men who went about without a tie, proper hatting and not wearing a suit fit for the occasion were enjoined to go home and come back “dressed like a Christian”. Words we could all perhaps take to heart this season as we resist the latest fads.

As the story goes, Apollo, being a god pretty much won the thing by a country mile. But Midas, feeling rash, decided in favour of the other guy. Apollo, also not known for long deliberation, blasted the other lute-ist (?) into oblivion and smacked Midas up the head informing him he had the ears of an ass – and lo! he grew a pair to illustrate the point.

I am going somewhere with this so bear with me.

 He was a little sensative about this was Midas and would go about wearing a silk cap to keep this schtum. The ancient Greeks were, by their own account, a tolerent and libretarian collection of persons but fuzzy ears was the limit apparently.

Anyway, this little ruse de chapeau, as the French foppishly call it, worked on everyone accept his barber who, wise man, kept it quiet. But the secret preyed on him; he lost sleep, refused his ruffage, for all we know he gave Mrs Barber the wrong impression entirely. Anyway he suffered.

Unable to take it any longer he dug a hole in the group and whispered “Midas has ass’s ears!” into said hole and filled it in.

Much relieved he returned home, flung his arms around the misses and probably ate the Greek equivalent of a roast dinner - so grape leaves and feta or something like that, but the important thing is he would have eaten well and slept a better man for unburdening himself.

But by sheer bad luck it seems reeds grew from his hole which whispered to the trees which in turn told the birds who told the flowers who told Prince Charles who spread it about the town. And the barber got the chop.

My point is it’s hard to keep things inside. That and we should all have a good grounding in the classics.

It has been almost two years since I posted here, I entred politics as a profession and was told to knock it off or else. But it has preyed on me like our unhappy barber. I think Mrs Capt. has taken about all she can of my rants and rambles about the house so now that I am in a new job slightly less front line I have started again.

As before, I can’t promise to be witty or informed or make much sense but at least I know you kind souls probably won’t dob me in to HRH Charles, he’s such a gossip you know.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the American delegation has appointed a Darfur refugee to carry its flag into the ‘bird’s nest’ stadium tomorrow night for the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. The move is being interpreted as a slight on China’s Sudanese policy (it sends arms to the Government and has conspicuously failed to support peace moves) but Jacque Rogge, head of the International Olympic Committee, has asked the Americans not to ‘get into propaganda exercises’.

Rogge would know about propaganda exercises. One of his own officials has accused him of cutting a secret deal with China to ensure that the international media is censored during the games. See this report at The Australian for details.

In case you were wondering, the Olympic Movement stands for the ‘respect for universal fundamental ethical principles’.

Speaking of Nazi Germany, I wonder how the BBC would have represented the 1936 games if they were held today? Presumably, Monkey would have been replaced by a cartoon based on Adolf the Aryan and his adventures in prehistoric Germany.

Back to Beijing, however, and I am beginning to think that this should be called the Ironic Olympics. The Daily Telegraph reports that Beijing has been warned about the threat of new performance enhancing drugs, which could be more difficult than ever to detect. Given China’s previous record with drugs – see the scandals involving its swimmers in the 1990s – it is a good job that the threat from the drug is ‘minimal’ (although how does that square with the scientific warning that the drug is being used now?). But, no doubt, the swimmers were acting without the knowledge of the state. China has, after all, a good record of letting its citizens get on with their lives.

Bobby Moore lifts the World Cup in 1966

Of all the major sports in the United Kingdom, association football is by far the most sentimental. Witness Frank Lampardturning his eyes to heaven to thank his late mother every time he manages to run onto the pitch without falling over, or the way in which it only takes the death of a blade of grass in the south-west corner of the Kidderminster Harriers’ stadium for every team in the country to don their well worn black armband. Black? More likely grey by now.

Quite why football should be so sentimental is a mystery although it no doubt has a lot to do with the fact that the game has become incredibly rich without really deserving the money; hence, for as much filthy lucre as there is swilling around, there is also a lot of guilt too. Sentimentality is football’s well of showing that it hasn’t lost its soul.

The most recent case of sentimentality comes to us courtesy of West Ham United which, on the 50th anniversary of the debut of Bobby Moore as a Hammers player, has decided to retire his shirt. Or rather, his number: 6.

It is very laudable that we remember the great men and women of old. In Moore’s case, however, his greatness does not come so much from the fact that he was a West Ham player than that for 120 minutes on 30  1966 he had rather a good game with the England side, a game which resulted in the national side winning the FIFA World Cup for the first (and so far only) time.

As a result of this unprecedented triumph, Moore – who died in 1993 – has had a stand named after him at Upton Park as well as two statues of himself erected outside the West Ham ground and Wembley Stadium. That, it seems to me, is a more than perfectly adequate return for being a member of the 11 man squad that brought the World Cup to England.

But West Ham United have now gone further. Indeed, too far. What will they do on the 75th or 100th anniversary of Moore’s debut for the club? Or on the anniversary of the first time he captained the England team? Or played his last game for the club or, most sadly, died? In time it would not r me to find the area around Upton Park, every last street, pub and park bench named after Moore as if he were a god of Rome: Moore the First Time as Captain, Moore the World Cup Victor, Moore Who Took A Fancy To This Oak Tree When It Was In Full Leaf.

The problem with football is that, much like the Senate in Imperial Rome, it just doesn’t know when to stop heaping honours upon a man. At least the Senate could claim necessity arising out of a fear of its members being butchered if it did not acclaim the Emperor so.

If West Ham United want to honour Bobby Moore they should get back to the sources – the games that he played. Removing his shirt number acts against that as it suggests something that is plainly untrue: that he was irreplaceable. As good a player as he was, he was not that. No player ever is. They are turning the man into a myth and, ultimately, removing from the sight of the people the real reason for his being a legend.

The new Mr and Mrs Phillips’ wedding has received a certain amount of press coverage in the U.K. because Peter Phillips is the grandson of the Queen (his mother being her daughter, Princess Anne). And as part of that coverage, it has been noted that the charmingly named Autumn Kelly has renounced her Catholic faith in order to marry her beloved.

Why has she done this? I am not aware of any statement issued by the newly weds so cannot be sure. BBC On-Line, however, states that,

The new Mrs Phillips gave up her Catholic faith and converted to the Church of England, enabling Mr Phillips to retain his right to the throne. (Read the full report here).

Interesting. For as the report points out, Mr Phillips is 11th in line to the throne. Of course, when Prince William and Harry become fathers, he will move to the lower teens. That is, of course, if those of child bearing age between positions three and ten, do not produce any offspring.

As everyone knows, Catholics are forbidden under the law to become the king or Queen of Britain. But given the fact that he is such a low ranking claimant to the throne, and one whose claim will only get lower within the next few years, is it really credible to suggest that Mrs Phillips renounced her faith so that her husband could remain a legitimate claimant?

If she did, the question of who required her to make the conversion arises. If it was her decision, she surely betrays herself as an cynical opportunist. Likewise if it was a member of her family who put her up to it. If, however, it was her husband or another member of the Royal Family, well, in a quiet way, it speaks volumes about how the Royal Family in Britain sees the Catholic faith. And it is one that is quite at variance with society at large.

Amidst the great crisis of the world, the conversion of Autumn Kelly is not a matter that will exercise too many minds, perhaps rightly so; but nevertheless, unless it can be said that Mrs Phillips renounced her faith because she genuinly ceased to believe it, the shadows that the possible reasons for her conversion cast, sadden me. As a Royalist, I may also say that I find them troubling.

Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian.

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Communist leader of the Soviet Union, has acknowledged his Christian faith for the first time, paying a surprise visit to pray at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi.

Read the full story at the paper’s website here. What can one say about this? To be sure, I do not know which is more surprising – that Gorbachev is a Christian or that he has a particular devotion to St Francis of Assisi. One would expect a Russian to be devoted to one of the tougher saints, let’s say, the likes of Ignatius of Loyola or Ambrose!

Having said that, I am very surprised that Gorbachev has anything to do with specifically Catholic Saints at all. It is rare that I hear of any positive interaction between the Catholic Church and Russian Orthodox, to which the last leader of the Soviet Union belongs. Maybe, just maybe, Gorbachev could be a positive influence here. At any rate, I am sure his prayers will be.

Now, gamesmanship before the law – in the form of lying – is receiving similar attention after the Court of Cassation in Italy ruled that it is acceptable for a woman to lie about having an affair in order to protect her honour. The full story is at BBC On-Line here.

You might have thought that in having an affair, the woman had laid aside her honour, but the judges disagreed. How has this come about? Well, Italy may be the Catholic heart of Europe, but she is also the country of the bella figura where giving a good impression of oneself is regarded as being not just a good thing to do but necessary. Perhaps this blinded the judges to the implications of their ruling.

Or, it may be that these judges are, well, a bit mad, for as the BBC article points out, they are they same judges who once said that a woman who wore tight jeans could not be raped as they could only be removed with her consent.

Whatever the truth of the matter, let’s just hope that the cuckold never asks the judge why he is so fat…