Sadly, not even the car proved to be
convertible.
They had often wondered what a rev counter was
for.
"OK, Sharon, have the kids baptised as Roman
Catholics. But when it comes to the car. . ."
John Saxbee
The manufacturer's warranty ordained that the
annual service should be carried out religiously.
Michael Foster
THERE isn't a caption
photo in existence to which readers won't apply a contemporary
reference: "It says here: 'Make sure you don't put a woman
in the driving seat.' Oh, wait, this isn't the manual, it's the
minutes of General Synod. . ." (Corin Child); and
"It happened right after the General Synod vote. It just
seemed to give up the ghost" (Allan Palmer).
In no particular order,
and with no perceptible connections: "Top Gear
investigates the latest Mass Transport System" (Richard
Barnes); "It was the oddest emergency baptism that Fr Paul
had ever been asked to do" (Valerie Budd); "When
Bishop Welby announced a new liturgy for blessing the oil, this
wasn't what we were expecting" (John Middleditch);
"He was trying to remember which eucharistic prayer had the
word "Reassembly is a reverse of the above procedure"
(Stephen Disley); "Well, that didn't work. Let's try
phoning Holy Trinity, Brompton" (Bob Torrens);
"The garage couldn't explain the strange knocking in the
engine, so they decided to try exorcism" (Christopher
Wain).
In similar vein, i.e. no
vein at all: "The blessings of the oils usually took place
inside the cathedral" (Andy Greenhough);
"The owners soon realised that the phone number for the
vicarage was only slightly different from the number of the local
repair garage" (Richard Hough); "The man from
Ecclesiastical Insurance prayed that this cup might be taken from
them" (Sue Chick).
We particularly liked:
"And a voice came from heaven, 'Nah, sorry, mate. We only
do Fiats'" (Richard Martin); "The BCP commination
service came into its own" (Peter Ball); and "The
problem seems to be caused by a failure of the catholic
con-verter" (Allan Palmer).
In all these examples, we
have omitted the most common play on words, which accounted for the
bulk of the submissions. We have awarded a prize to Michael Foster
for the best example of these. The other award goes to John Saxbee,
for three of his entries. All prizes of Fairtrade chocolate have
been kindly donated by Divine (divinechocolate.com).
Have a go at our next
caption-competition picture (below). Entries must reach us by
Friday 4 January.
by email to: captioncompetition@churchtimes.co.uk
by post (postcards only)
to:
Caption Competition
Church Times
3rd floor
Invicta House
108-114 Golden Lane
London EC1Y 0TG
by fax
to:
020 7490 7093