I settle down on a warm April Saturday in our idyllic Sussex village, fire-up the 73” Tesla Nazivision TV, plump the Kristjana S Williams cushions, make myself a celery, apple and ginger juice in the Hurom H-400 self-feeding juicer and prepare for the televised feast that will be the funeral of Pope Francis – live and direct from Vatican City as only the BBC can. This broadcast alone should see off of most of the licence payers cash. Reeta Chakrabarti will be our Huw Edwards substitute – and that’s ironic as the funeral will undoubtedly be the largest gathering of nonces ever seen in human history. Huw will be sadly shuffling around Tescos in Streatham Hill buying vapes whilst the events unfold.
The music is predictably wonderful. Once you’ve glossed over the centuries of death, destruction and misery that organised religion had sown, one is left with brilliant music, stupendous art, unimaginable architecture and a lot of bizarre but very cool outfits.
The problem I found was the utter meaningless twaddle that dropped from cardinals, bishops and others lips. Preaching understanding and compassion for all (except maybe pooftahs and trannies), declaring a new future of harmony and forgiveness (excepting maybe pooftahs and trannies) plus the church having a new commitment to righting the wrongs of its murky past.
All of these dilemmas were suddenly and shockingly halted by the news of the tragic death of Virginia Giuffre. A woman who, as a young girl, was trafficked by wealthy elite bastards to be abused by a senior member of the British Royal Family – good ol’ Prince Paedo himself. And not a single one of them showed any remorse or shame. At least the Catholic clergy who turned a blind eye to bumming alter boys put out a token; ‘We are so sorry and we shall root out the bad ‘uns. Honest.’
Virginia Giuffre stood virtually alone against powerful people with unlimited resources trying to shut her up, she was indeed a very brave person – I’ll bet Andrew regrets giving her that £12 million now, he’ll be needing that as he sinks further into the gutter with a ghost on his shoulder that he will never be able to shake off.
It was a day to forget, ultimately depressing. I got stuck into the Romanian tequila to make the world go away.
