SEE you later, Moderator! Our paths may well cross during the General Assembly. Starts Thursday, get your tickets now while stocks last.
Having heard that fewer than half a million regularly attend C of S services, I'd have to ask the new Mod, the Rev David Lunan, a 63-year-old Glaswegian, how, in God's name, and in this day and age, he hopes to stop the rot.
What's up, doc! He's b
een blaming society's materialism and the Sabbath's counter attractions when his fire and brimstone – is there any of that still about, is there an Elmer Gantry out there? – should be directed at preachers crucifying congregations with so much pap from the pulpit.
I'm thinking of the Rev IM Jolly, Rikki Fulton's unforgettable, deadly accurate send-up of your average C of S minister.
"There are not the children in the way that I remember them as I grew up," muses the Mod of his flock.
Right on! For a sign of these we're-all-doomed-time, we only have to watch Songs of Praise and clock the facial expressions as they give the hymns laldi.
A tad too self-righteous for their own good perhaps. Certainly for mine. They look like they've assembled in God's waiting room.
A general assembly? Here endeth the lesson.
Top of pie chartsStressed? Aren't we all? Even gets to your scribbler, the life and soul of any party, mind you.
Yes I get stressed sometimes but help is on the way and I'm not talking Valium or a bucket of Bucky.
A neuroscience lecturer at London's Imperial College (the place to go if ever you need one in a hurry) recommends listening to or singing Gregorian chant and your stress vanishes. Just like that.
Nothing to with Gregg-orian chants often heard outside a bakery from bulky customers clamouring for pies and pastries.
I've tried it and it works. I now chant good-style every morning after downing my customary glass of fermented yak's milk.
This column, best for practical advice.
Tomorrow: Grow your own rhubarb.
The full article contains 351 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
