Countdown to Gaymaggeden! Church has just 48 months left NOT to decide anything

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland found the longest patch of grass in the field this week and booted the question of gay ministers right intae it.

A Church source told The JT: "We've appointed a committee to look at the issue of homosexuality and Christianity. Basically the members will be charged with asking the question 'Who would Jesus do?' Hopefully they'll come up with an answer that appeases all sides in the debate, or failing that, maybe Our Father Which Art In Heaven will find a cure for gayness."

Meanwhile, the compromise means that the Church will not allow openly gay people to serve as ministers ensuring of course that gay people who want to serve will just ixnay it on the yag tib.

Professor Beaker of Glasgow's Department of Oooh Vicar You're A Saucy One And No Mistake! Studies told The JT: "This ruling encourages gay people to stay closeted, leading self-denying, unauthentic, dishonest lives. At first glance that doesn't seem a very Christian thing to insist on. At second glance, it looks worse."

Evangelical sentiment in The Church is seeing the interim ban as a partial victory as one torn-faced, life-denying cleric told The JT: "If the Lord had meant human beings to live honest and open sexual lives he wouldn't have seen fit to marry me off to my spouse: a boot-faced swamp monster, who apparently thinks a blow job is something the hairdresser does.

Jesus Christ, is it not time to die yet?"

Inside: Actually, why would gay men want to be ministers? The Catholics have just fabulous robes and you don't have to fight the ladies for them.

And it's a grand old team to pay for!

As under-fire 'tic manager Gordon Strachan heads for the exit at Parkheid, management at the club are said to be satisfied with the club's performance despite failing to win the SPL title.

A major shareholder told The JT: "Despite the unwelcome distraction of having to field a football team, the underlying financial performance of the important bit, the business, has been very acceptable. A healthy balance sheet, record profit before tax, what's not to celebrate?"

It is thought that the keepers of holy biscuit tin have hoarded cash very effectively this year, mainly by not allowing Strachan to buy any decent players as this distraught denizen of Bairds told The JT: "When Willo Flood's your big windae signing you know youre donald ducked. And not in a good way."

Despite record returns to shareholders, the financial masterminds at Paradise are promising a whole raft of new financial moves in the run up to next season as a spokestim confirms: "We've always said that its a great honour to play for Celtic, which is why we'll be introducing a new system of signing on fees for next season. Players intending to transfer to Celtic will be required to pay the club a signing on fee, in recognition of how great we uhr. So we uhr."

Inside: Celtic Board thank Stratchan for his hard work, say there's "no rush" for him to return the paper clips he borrowed. Next week will be fine, but taking a fortnight would be pushing it a wee bit to be honest.

Previously on The JT blog, "Pope Innocent X, the Celtic Minded":

Photogags

Butterfly dries out on a bluebell-"no more nectar for me" he vows

Time to play the "is it a harmless grassnake or is it an adder?" game. And lose...

Posing deer insists on bunch of carrots "up-front".

Psychologists agree:passengers on the very late running Kings Cross-Edinburgh Service from May 1939 may need counselling

A field guide to slows

According to the BBC Scotland News website, the powers that be are asking for public help to count the number of swifts at large in the Cairngorm National Park.

Y-e-s. I think the slight difficulty attaching to that task might be hinted at by the name of the bird in question. "Swift" as in fast and not Swift as in Irish satirist.

But enough negativity. Completely free of charge, here's my three stage classification for quantifying the number of individual birds in a flock of swifts :

1. Nane.
2. More than one
3. Hunners.

I trust that helps.

Now if only the bird experts wanted us to count the number of slows, slows are a skoosh.

"There were hunners here a minute ago, hunners."

Pulling, RIP

Doubtless to offer me existential comfort, when as a child, I asked her why good people die young, my Mum would reply: "Because God wants them beside him."

And if you follow the logic, bad people got to live longer because God didn't want them.

From an early age, I started to see flaws in this explanation. I mean, if God didn't like someone why didn't he just kill them and get them sent to Hell?

This was all brought back to mind after watching the last ever Pulling on BBC 3 last night. Why didn't Pulling get a third series? Here are the theological options:

1. Because God wants Pulling beside him, in Heaven.
2. Because God wants to punish us by denying us a third series while suffering Two Pints and Gavin and Stacey to live.
3. Because there is no God, nothing makes sense and there's no point to any of it.

My money's on 3.

Private Treatment Centre - condition improves after massive transfusion of public cash.

Staff at the privately owned treatment centre funded by NHS Tayside reported that the centre's condition was improving after a massive transfusion of public cash.

Research by boffins at Edinburgh yooni revealed that the centre was adjudged value for money by external consultants, but only based on the number of referrals, not number of treatments. Only 38% of those patients referred by the NHS to cut waiting times actually received any treatment.

A spokesledger for the private centre told The JT: "We've noticed a marked decline in the company's vital cash levels when forced to do what the medics call "a procedure". By charging the NHS just for looking at a patient and then quietly shoving them back out the door, we've noticed that we can maintain cash levels at a healthy level, subject of course to regular transfusions supplied by the gullible hayseeds who run NHS Tayside."

Paying the centre by the referral is analogous to having your car looked at by the garage and then being presented with a real bill for a theoretical programme of repair.

A five year old child contacterd by The JT said: "The way to make a valid comparison would be to divide the total amount paid by the number of procedures carried out weighted for degree of complexity, and then set against a valid NHS comparator. And now I want juice and a biscuit."

Inside: Ancient but glorious. "Doctor, there's a man in reception who says he's invisible." "Tell him I can't see him just now."

From The Scotsman, sort of...

Published Date: 15 May 2009

By David Maddox, Scottish Political Correspondent

"MacAskill faces MSPs' fury on Canada trip and court vote."

OPPOSITION parties are considering an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Scottish justice secretary Kenny MacAskill.

The minister provoked fury among many MSPs after he ignored a vote last week to set up a community court in Glasgow. He also came under fire when new evidence emerged about a junket he took to Canada in January...

Labour leader Iain Grey said : "I'm concerned about the state of Mr MacAskill's mental health, I mean who the fuck goes voluntarily to Canada in January? He must be fuckin' mental."

That was then, this is now...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7757754.stm

"Expenses row" - could it mean that Mick has to actually pit in a shift?

As the row over MPs' expenses rumbles on, there was concern in Westminster last night that under-fire Speaker Michael Martin might actually have to get a real job.

One Labour MP told The JT: "Compared to Mick, all the other tools in the bag are capable of quickly cutting through something very hard to cut. When the expenses row blew up, Mick effortlessly misjudged the public mood by insisting the police be brought in to lift the leaker of the leak. Way to go Mick, that is really going to help."

Mr Martin has previously asserted that his elevation to The Speaker role marked a triumph for working class people. An assertion which does tend to challenge somewhat received understandings of the meaning of "triumph" in 150 years of socialist struggle.

Inside: As in all vexing issues of human culture we turn to The Simpsons for enlightenment. Homer on being caught in some nefarious deed responds: "Marge, I'm really sorry you found out."

Is this the end for The Taliban?

The Ministry of Defence announced this week immediate deployment to Afghanistan of a detachment of "Fran and Anna's Own" Cavalry. This elite tactical group will undermine Taliban morale by singing selections from the late sisters' songbook in Pashtoo.

If the Taliban still resist, MOD officials will then instruct unit commanders to employ the ultimate sanction - having the horses sit on the Taliban until they agree to play nice.

Fran and Anna's Own should not be confused by HM The Queen's Household Cavalry, the latter unit just sit around the house all day really...

The sadly now deceased, modestly attired, "Bathgate bags", seen here with the unfortunately still alive Johnnie Beattie.

Scots on the poster: Aberdeen, Scottish but every so slightly skew-wiff...

Nicola Sturgeon, Swine Flu and Suzi Quattro

There was increasing medical concern being expressed in Scotland last night as the rate of swine flu infection reached disappointingly low levels.

An ashen-faced medic told The JT: "If things carry on this way then we face the very real prospect of Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon being fatally starved of the oxygen of publicity, with tragic consequences for her fashion sense."

Space-alien, fish monster Nicola has been on TV every day since the epidemic kicked off - even managing, in one blessed day, the fabled treble of appearing on BBC National News, Reporting Scotland AND Newsnight - the real wan, before the Scottish version, the wan watched only by close friends and family of the production staff.

The media exposure has forced Nicola into dressing in something approximating fashionable clothes, eschewing her classic Granny's twin set look or, heaven forfend, the costume used for her Suzi Quattro tribute act.

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond is polishing up the final draft of his fulsome obituary tribute to the memory of Nicola who will tragically die in a bizarre gardening accident if she doesn't shut it.

Inside: Above.That's a photograph of the swine flu virus apparently. Fuckin' hell, how could anyone miss that coming towards them? It's fuckin' huge.

Ms Sturgeon, down at Devil Gate Drive, yesterday, where she apparently exhorted all attending to come alive...

Jesus Christ! What bit of "judgemental" is it that gays don't understand?

With Church of Scotland meenisters apparently objecting to one of their number being given to (cough) "throwing a light dart", the gay cleric in question, Scott Rennie, is said to be a bit thick.

In (presumably) praying his fellow clerics might be a bit more non-judgemental, it is apparent that he hasn't grasped the fundamental organising principle of religious discourse: a tendency to be a tad judgemental.

The view that church ministers must be avowed fanny rats and not given to (ahem) "playing for the away team" has support, as Professor Beaker of Glasgow's Centre for Studying Stuff That Only Makes Sense If You Don't Study Anything Else, told The JT:
"There is an evangelical element within the protestant tradition in Scotland that has the good bits of The Bible, the bits about not suffering sodomites to live, highlighted in yellow with 'And quite right too!' marked in the margins in green ink.

This group is referred to euphemistically as The Friends Of Early-Onset Dementia."

It is thought that this attempt to ban gay clerics is only the first step in an evangelical crusade to do away with female ministers as well. And if you're a female minister and also enjoy (harrumph) "walking holidays", you're doubly fucked.

And not in a good way...

Inside: The Bible: a guide for modern living, if you live in the past.

(Ahem)...

From Scotland on Sunday, 4th April, 2009

"Margaret Curran, the Glasgow Baillieston MSP, called on Thatcher to say sorry for neglecting Glasgow's heavy industries and for introducing the hated poll tax that contributed so much to her downfall after 11 years.

Curran said: "Margaret Thatcher should apologise to Glasgow for her policies that wreaked havoc on our city. The constituency I represent is still trying to recover from the destruction that ensued from her plans and political approach."

Scots on the poster: Scotland's posh hotels, discriminatory but homely with it

Photogags

Queen promises low key weekend to Balmoral guests

"Shocked" Labradors to sue hairdresser as "light" perm goes wrong

Insert own "recent Royal Bank directors meeting" gag here

NYC: Falkirk Formation Carpet Fitters' world tour continues

Gordon the Gannet was getting pissed off at that

other gannet copying him the whole time