The Deadly Sins
Our ever-salubrious spiritual watchdog and theologian Professor Godfrey Jollygood returns to herd you through the farm gates of righteousness with his cattle-prod of moral rectitude. This week, he delves into the devil's nosebag of Gluttony:
"I was at a dinner party last week. Not any old dinner party, you understand. Certainly not one of those unpleasant affairs where yuppies discuss how much they've earned since the aperitif. If I tell you I was pleasantly sandwiched between Sir Simon Rattle and William G Stewart, I think you'll get the impression of the sort of haut monde in which I move. We had just finished the fifth course, a delightfully cheeky roulade de pamplemousse au sauce Viennese (or so I was informed by William G - he's such an authority on these matters), and I was embarking on a witty little anecdote about Baroness Thatcher and a tea-strainer when I was stopped in my tracks by a positively repulsive sight. Some frightful woman sitting opposite me - I think I recognized her from the Daily Mirror, some other such fish-wrapper - had finished her dessert and, evidently not satisfied with her lot, had procured Sir Simon's plate and was proceeding to scrape up his crumbs with all the gusto of a boar snuffling for truffles. Positively disgusting. Dear old Sir Simon simply didn't know what to do, and William G was so shocked he just kept repeating 'Question or nominate?' over and over again. When I voiced my disapproval to the befrocked offender, mentioning in my most clerical and understanding tones that her behaviour perhaps wasn't the most fitting for a dinner table with gentlemen present, she replied that she was prepared to engage in plenty less fitting behaviour than that with gentlemen such as myself present. I mean, really, how unnecessary. Gluttony really is the most unattractive trait, especially amongst the more nubile gender. I love a woman with a good appetite as much as the next celibate man, but I really do draw the line at being smothered in peanut butter, chocolate syrup and crushed nuts and being repeatedly osculated by a younger woman. Us clerics must have our limits, you know. And if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the supermarket."
Godfrey Jollygood was waxing lyrical to SJP
23rd Oct 2003