Author: Janus

Hey! I'm back ...... and front

Heathen holidays

In days of yore, my dad didn’t work on Good Friday or Easter Monday or Tuesday! And now everybody in Britain does, I suppose. But over here, where Viking bums on pews are as common as hens’ teeth, people are officially off work on three days, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Monday. That’s as many days off as at Juletide. Although that’s child’s-play compared with Cyprus where if you’re crafty you can celebrate two Xmases and two Easters. I fully expect LW to report that the New World doesn’t have any days off at Easter at all – but what of the rest of you charioteers? Do tell.

Denmark makes a killing

Actress Sofie Grabol presented Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall with gifts during a visit to the set of Danish TV Series The Killing in Copenhagen, Denmark

You see, in a single week this draughty archipelago has become host to the Big Time. Not only patronised by god’s gift to the monarchy, we have been graced by the EU finance mob trying to raise a tax on bank transactions – which the PM, Mrs Kinnock can’t agree with or disagree with. No change there then. But best of all the EDL are in the Second City, Århus, to ….. well, to demonstrate. Not sure why, except that an islamist group plans to object.

Let’s hope it’s all jaw, jaw; not war, war.

Panaceas and placebos are not PC

British patriots among us will recall that Lady Sarah Ferguson boasted of using royal jelly (by mouth) to facilitate conception, while even today a North Korean mother of triplets sings the praises of honey potions prescribed for her by the late, lamented Kim Jong-Il – akshully very ill by all acccounts.

But unmoved by these historically reliable accounts of the power of patent medicines, canny Chinese bosses plan to ban all such products from being promoted as ‘miraculous’. In fact China’s State Food and Drug Administration will outlaw words it classes as “vulgar or linked with superstition, such as: sex, God, immortal,” from the names of health products”.

Which strikes me as a bit harsh. I mean the Chinese seem to believe in the power of feng shui, tai chi and i ching, not to mention the application of needles in unmentionable places – so what’s so dangerous about ginseng, horny goat weed and a few enchanted pills from the local quack?

Remember, Confucius he say, “A little bit of what you fancy always does you good, innit?”

The less silent Rowan

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams

You’ve got to admire him, the soon-to-be-former Head Druid. He’s been an inspirational captain of his club. Crosses should be worn. Female clerics and partnering poofters need not apply. And unlike his namesake, he has always expressed himself unequivocally without raising a laugh. He even managed to obtain a ‘don’t know’ from Dawkins in a recent encounter. But now he’s hanging up his boots and it’s back to the groves of academe, in one of the cloistered halls of that polytechnic in the Fens. So bring on the next victim – he’ll need the constitution of an ox, as Rowan says.