Hey, Reverend Tambourine Man

I don't go to church here any more.

I did for the first year, out of politeness for mama, but I'd had it up to here at those two schools that I knew I'd lose my temper, sitting there cramped with no distraction or entertainment, bobbing up and down for 75 minutes just to shove €10 in the collection bag.

What I really dreaded is that ghastly 'Peace' when everyone rushes around slobbering over each other.

Ruptured Supplication: Michael Henderson in his graceful and skewering Spectator review of Quentin Letts' must-buy Fifty People who Buggered up Britain:

Letts reserves his sharpest barbs for two less-heralded cultural vandals, Graham Kendrick and the Very Rev Ronald Jasper.

Kendrick, apparently, has composed more than 400 ghastly modern hymns:

"There may be a time and place for happiness," Letts writes of Kendrick's tunes, "but church worship is a time for inner examination, not bullying, incessant gaiety ... yet here are the happy-clappies insisting that they bang a tambourine, just as they insist that the inner spell of adult supplication be ruptured in their communion services in order to shake hands or kiss neighbours at the 'sign of the peace."

'This an angry book,' summarises Henderson. 'It is also beautifully written.'

Other quotable quotes from Henderson's ace review:

Paul Burrell: a mincing rat

John Prescott: plain stupid

'Sir' Jimmy Savile: the octogenarian show-off, run through for an obsession with being young that cheapens 'the currency of authentic, heady youth.'

Daily Mail article.