Depression no more

Moghul is sorry to lean that No Depression Magazine is to cease trading, but hardly surprised.

While an invaluable source of good country music news and reviews, it suffered, like a lot of journlism these days, from a lack of humour and eventually bored too many advertisers and readers.

I'm forever telling the fatty editor of the Champion that what the people of Southport want more than anything is a laugh, but he always shakes his head manfully and claims that a small but significant minority want misery above all else.

I suppose I pay him to make these decisions, but can't help thinking I'd be better off with that on the spots fellow or the chap who writes about pubs.

The new improved Catholic Church

A a Catholic aristocrat, I always have mixed feelings about the Faith after Holy Week.

It is the best time to be a Roman Catholic, a moving time that helps one feel at once connected with Catholics everywhere, to feel timeless almost, as if you where somehow here and also there when the Greatest Story Ever told reached its cliffhanging climax.

Easter vigil Mass, for those who don't know, is much longer than normal, and my parish priest - getting on a bit in years – was under a lot of stress this year.

The few of us who turned up to parade round with our candles and listen to the seemingly endless lists of readings did so, I think, with a sense that something has to change before the church in England dies on its knees.

What will happen to the Church? Its aging congregations are dwindling each year a little more. Even the little old men who take care of the offertory and the wee women who polish and arrange flowers, people you thought would be there forever, are starting to drop off the twig.

The pressure on numbers will mean that soon more churches will have to close. Some of those communities will join the new parishes, others will melt away.

In the sermon on Easter Saturday the priest talked of a cultural revolution that is beginning in the Church.

I feel that's the right right track, a Church should emerge that is less about doing things properly, less about condemning sin and more about experiencing all the beauty of the Mass, the fullness of the scriptures and closeness to all people of faith.

Remember, the Church is not about Popes, priests and bishops, it's about all the people in it, be they rule-breakers or not.

It's also encouraging that the Church is standing up against this Frankenstein bill currently before parliament, which aims to turn us into mutants or at least stick two fingers up at the norms of English life.

That's what we need now, some old-time leadership and new thinking. Not compromise, just a new confidence.

A Brush with the law

My old friend Basil Brush arrived the other night, ashen faced, his tweeds in tatters.

The old fox has been on the run after discharging a joke in a public place. Now that the police have solved all the murders and rapes that have taken place, they are clamping down on children's TV characters who push at the boundaries of taboo.

For those of you how don't know of the crime, Brush is alleged to recounted asking for a consultation with a Romany fortune teller who predicted that the old loafer would soon embark on a long journey.

When asked what happened next Brush is said to have replied: "He stole my wallet and I had to walk all the way home."

Disgraceful, I know, but now that the economy is in crisis, we toffs have to stick together.

Meanwhile, I am riding out the financial storm by buying up huge reserves of lucky pegs and heather. However by the looks of some of the sellers, the talismans have not been so lucky for them.

Stinging shame

My time travelling exploits have failed. According to today's Telegraph, all bees will be wiped out by 2018.

If only we could wipe out Lib Dem leader Vince Cable, who wants to force feed us fruit smoothies before dinner instead of our usual cocktails.

Bring back that Clegg fellow.

Naughty nurses

Hearing from my friend Lord Mancroft that all nurses are grubby and promiscuous, I immediately feigned a gammy leg and booked myself into hospital for some slumpy pumpy.

After being forced to wait an interminably long time for service, jostling for position in the waiting room with hundreds of drunk children, my turn on the trolley finally came.

I must say I was disappointed with the girl they offered me, I'd had visions of a naughty Babs Windsor or an large and experienced Hattie Jacques type. The girl I got was thin, pale, obviously overworked.

She asked nicely for me to take my trousers off, but to be honest I didn't have the heart to go through with the arrangement. I made my excuses and left, placing a handful of tenners on a swing bin as I exited.

Is it any wonder that the NHS is in such crisis? Any young man with non-uxorious tastes would choose a private parlour over the state-run flop house that our local services have become any day.

Bevan would be tossing in his grave.