EPIPHANY might seem like a long time ago now, but readers warmed to the theme.
Some saw parallels — or, in some cases, conflict — between this ancient festival and Saturday-night TV shows: “The council of Wise Men met each year on 6 January for a round of Stars in Their Eyes (John Radford); “Replacing the nativity play with Our School’s Got Talent was not a great success” (Valerie Budd); “There appeared to be some confusion between the Epiphany, the Knights of the Round Table, and The X Factor” (Michael Foster); “Interfaith sensitivities had removed the Holy Family, the shepherds, and the angels from the nativity play. There was not much left” (Patrick Irwin); “The Kings were all there, but Mary and Joseph had taken Jesus away for some ‘family time’” (Patrick Irwin).
Other readers saw things through a more political lens: “Is it just my age or is the Scottish Assembly run by children now?!” (Sue Chick); “The EU Youth Branch were unimpressed by the Brexit Song of Exultation” (Eric Lishman); “It had been a long time since the Star Chamber had met” (Tom Page).
Not being able to hear the singer in the photo did not stop some readers from pronouncing a verdict: “The judges could award only two stars to the singer” (Brian Stevenson); “I preferred it when we had a real clown at birthday parties” (Eric Lishman); “The Magi Circle were frankly incensed when Gabrielle sang ‘Hark the Herod’s Angels Sing’” (Christopher Huxtable); “The new protest song seemed to be getting a relaxed reception” (Richard Hough); “In the High Court of Heaven, only two votes came out in favour of Graham Kendrick” (David Hill).
Some other entries that we enjoyed: “If we have to spend much longer in debate, the baby Jesus will be learning carpentry in Nazareth” (Patrick Irwin); “The Cathedrals Working Group report also had ideas for reforming the role of Precentor” (Richard Barnes); “Well, at least we got out of maths for it” (M. J. Leppard); “As she couldn’t dance on ice, the contestant decided to sing instead” (Chris Coupe); “Interviews for the new Director of Music at the local primary school took pupil-input a bit too far” (Vicky Lundberg); “Trying to get ‘an unknown number of non-gender-specific persons from Orient are’ to scan was an effort worthy of any modern worship-song” (Bridget Swan); “We, thirty-three kings, in conference are” (John Appleby); “Magi Child 1: ‘Did you know, scholars point out that Jesus wasn’t actually born in a stable?’ Magi Child 2: ‘Yeah, but he definitely wasn’t born in this branch of IKEA’” (Che Seabourne).
The winner will receive a prize of Fairtrade chocolate, kindly provided by Divine (divinechocolate.com).