Gruts

Boston Globe: Carter accepts Nobel prize

I don't know what to say. This is a great and truly unexpected honour. I'd like to thank my parents, my agent, my speech ferapisht, my… oh, wrong Carter.

BBC: Vicar tells children Santa is dead
Youngsters at a Christmas carol service were devastated when the Reverend Lee Rayfield told them Santa Claus was dead. Even parents at the service in Maidenhead, Berkshire, were shocked to hear Mr Rayfield say it was scientifically impossible for Father Christmas to deliver so many presents so quickly.

Hmm, a scientifically impossible phenomenon… Sounds like a pretty good definition of a miracle to me, vicar. Tell me, are there any other miraculous people you don't think we should believe in?

For several months now, Jen and I have been plagued by mice (Muscus musculus). This evening, it started to get stupid. We were sitting in our living room, enjoying the end of a bottle of wine in front of a roaring fire, when a mouse walked into the room, sauntered over to the record collection, and sat down staring at us.

Of course, Jen, being Jen, was having none of this nonsense. So, while I retired discreetly upstairs, she took the coal shovel in her hand and stove the vile vermin's skull in.

That's my girl!

Chicken and cashew nut stir fry for dinner this evening. It was so good that I've decided to add a new Recipes section to the website. Watch this space.

BBC: Archbishop attacks Church pomp
The Church's status as Britain's official state religion has been recently criticised as an anachronism in an age where the UK has millions of Catholics, Muslims and non-conformist Christians. Dr Williams said he was sceptical about the Church of England's position as the established state church. But many will feel it is a debate the new archbishop should not re-open, particularly as there is little interest in the subject among non-religious people.

Wrong! The anachronistic existence of an official British state religion should be a matter of immense interest (and irritation) to any non-religious person. I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm with the Archbishop of Canterbury on this one.

BBC: Australia retain the Ashes
Australia secured the Ashes series on Sunday, after coasting to an innings victory at the Waca inside three days. England have now lost eight series in a row against the old enemy.

So, it's official: England are crap at a crap game. Don't get me wrong, I'd have liked us to have won (if only to stop the Australians being so unbearably smug about it), but am I the only person in England who isn't particularly bothered by this supposed catastrophe? We're a cricketing joke. So what?

Personally speaking, I think my countrymen should be far more concerned about the impression we give to strangers to our country, as expressed by Iqbal Ahmed in this week's edition of the London Review of Books:

Where I come from, people believe that every Englishman is an intellectual. I was shocked and demoralised to find the intellect of the same Englishmen feeding on tabloids. I hadn't thought that intellectual activities meant a quiz night in the pub or a quiz show on the television. Englishness means self-centredness and unsociability. They would do a crossword rather than engage in a conversation with someone. It is not the weather which has made me feel cold in the Englishman's country after ten years, but the indifference shown by its citizens.

But hang on a second. Aren't taking part in quizzes, doing the crossword and being unsociable as quintessentially English as drinking warm beer, and being crap at cricket? Take that away from us, and we stop being English! And it's all well and good bemoaning the lack of English intellectual activities (whatever they are), but we can't all be as cerebral and erudite as Julian Date.

BBC: India marvels at 'miracle chapati'

Hundreds of Christian pilgrims and other curious onlookers have been making their way to a church in Bangalore in India to see a chapati which has the image of Christ burnt into it.

Well, after all, Jesus was supposed to be the bread of life.

Guardian: Pampered prince puts sun king in shade
His lifestyle would seem extravagant to Louis XIV: a team of four valets so that one is always available to lay out and pick up his clothes; a servant to squeeze his toothpaste on to his brush, and another who once held the specimen bottle while he gave a urine sample. Step into the world of the Prince of Wales, a lifestyle so pampered that even the Queen has complained that it is grotesque.

Required reading for all royalists.