St Albion Parish News, July 11, 2003

The Editor Alastair Campbell writes:

I’m sorry, but I have had to hold over the Vicar’s promised thoughts on “the meaning of truth” because there are more important matters which need to be dealt with this week, which is why I have just burst into his study and clicked ‘delete’ on his computer.
Sorry, Tony, but when my f****** integrity is being attacked by ignorant people all round the parish, then those people have to realise how serious this is.
I have been accused of deliberately falsifying a number of important parish documents.
What could be a more serious f****** allegation to make against someone occupying a very senior position of trust in the running of this parish, okay?
People say that, as editor of this newsletter, I should stay in the background. Bollocks is what I say to that!
What am I expected to do when these creepy little bastards are given airtime to make these ridiculous charges against me which are totally without foundation, and which they have not got a single shred of evidence to substantiate whatsoever?
What am I supposed to do? Just sit back and take it on the chin and turn the other cheek, as the Vicar would no doubt tell you, in his smug, holier-than-thou way?
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got a lot of respect for the Vicar. But let’s face it, he doesn’t frankly know his arse from his elbow. Streetwise, he’s a f****** no-no.
And if it wasn’t for me telling him what to say and what to do every minute of the day and night, our Tony, bless him, would still be some dim little curate in a one-horse parish out in the sticks, drinking tea with old ladies.
I’ve had to put up with an awful lot recently, I don’t mind saying, what with the Vicar’s wife going bananas with that new-age loony she’s let herself be taken in by.
I’ve told Tony again and again, they’re a pair of f****** fruitcakes, her and her mother, and it’s not doing the parish any good having the Vicar’s wife wandering round with someone who looks as if she had escaped from a refugee camp in the 60s.
As I told the Vicar a hundred times -- “get rid”, and as I said to Cherie herself -- “get a life”. But it’s like talking to the walking dead, those two!
If the Vicar is so interested in truth, then perhaps he’d better cop some of this. Without me, that boy is nothing.
All those people round the parish who’ve been predicting that I was going to quit seem to have forgotten one rather important little fact. If I was to go, then the whole St Albion’s show goes down the swanee.
And I’m not f****** joking!
So I have to stay, don’t I? I’m not going to do a Milburn and walk out on the Vicar in his hour of need. Not yet anyway.
If things are looking bad for the Vicar -- which, frankly, they are -- then he’s only brought it on himself, along with his wife and her nutcase friend.
And another thing. Why does he keep ringing up that sad old queen who used to be churchwarden to ask his advice? I mean, you’d have to be blind like Mr Blunkett not to see that he’s trouble on legs!
So, that’s it! Unless I get a full apology in writing from everyone in the parish, delivered to my office by nine o’clock tomorrow morning, there will be hell to pay for all concerned.
I hope I have made my message abundantly f****** clear!
Signed:

A. Campbell
(Editor-in-Chief)