God and Christmas Round Robins
God gets plenty of credit. One family, emigrants to the US, reminds us of “God’s amazing and ever-available peace and love”, which sadly was not available enough to prevent Dottie from getting “polymyalgia overlying fibromyalgia”. He was, however, able to help a young Yorkshirewoman with anorexia. As a last resort, she was advised to visit a church in Bridlington where the vicar prayed for her. “There was no immediate feeling of change, but as she drove home again she felt very hungry and stopped in a filling station for an Eccles cake.” Truly are His ways mysterious.

Others take a more robust attitude: “The new Archbishop of Canterbury has carefully cultivated an unkempt and dishevelled appearance, which is frightening to behold, and in defiance of the law of Leviticus.”

Simon Hoggart in ‘Despite the castration, it’s been a good year’ The Guardian, Saturday January 3, 2004