Help needed...

p.s. We are supposed to be having a Missa Cantata on Candlemas, it would be much better if it was High Mass, are there any priests willing to come and assist, I want to be deacon - any volunteers to Celebrant and Subdeacon? Beds and dinner available!

If there are any Deacons or Subdeacons out there that would like to assist Fr Blake to celebrate Candlemas in Brighton it would be a great boon for TLM Catholicism. No doubt the Mass will be celebrated ad Orientem in the Extraordinary Form, and if not undoubtedly with the Benedictine Altar arrangement which ''re-orients'' the congregation inwardly ''eastward'' to the Sacrifice of the Cross, as our omniscient and benevolent Holy Father, who knows so much about Liturgy, has said, binding and loosing that which is on earth, just like when he declared Limbo superfluous to the Gospel (thereby changing the destinies of however many millions of souls).

Oh wait...there are no Deacons or Subdeacons in the Roman Church since there are only Popes and Priests, the ''Extraordinary Form'' is pernicious crap, and facing the correct way liturgically is, for some obscure reason, a legitimate option. (Chortles). If this is the face of Traditional Catholicism, I want no part in it.

My very own post scriptum: Did the MC in this photo cover and uncover the Ciborium and Chalice? If not, why is he kneeling to the right of the Celebrant?

What alternative is there?

The Bishop of Rome, the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, faithful steward of the Divine Deposit, bulwark against heresy, successor of St Peter, vicegerent of Christ on earth, guardian of Tradition. This is what I used to believe, and was indeed led to believe.

But...if the Bishop of Rome is demonstrably not everything the Roman Catholic Church makes him out to be, what is he then? Is he just a kindly old man with delusions of grandeur, or just harmlessly misled? Or is he rather Christ's enemy and a demented megalomaniac, exalting himself in the Church of Christ and bent on the suppression of liturgical Tradition? I am not talking about personal scandal, but rather the magisterial imposition of systematic abuse on every godly and orthodox Catholic in Europe.

I believe, and have felt for some time now, that Pius XII (at least) was an Antichrist, and that such violence as he contrived against Tradition would be the envy of the most reprehensible Iconoclast of the 16th century. This is the uttermost choice, and the litmus test of one's ''loyalty'' I suppose (though to what? a pathetic has-been? The Roman Church is finished) - either Pius XII's reforms were a deliberate exercise of anti-Traditional abuse, or they were just a horrible mistake. Since they clearly fall into the former category, what shall we say of the man himself?

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites all; because you are like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead men's bones and of all corruption! (Matthew 23:27).

Conflict...

I don't like it when people disagree with me. This may seem rather ''immature'' to others, but in terms of something as fundamental as Liturgy I have a tendency to get very angry when another person expresses an opinion which is diametrically opposed to my own (correct) one. The other day someone I knew from college put on his Facebook: ''What if we just said 'and also with you?''' I tried remonstrating with him the consequences of eschewing the traditional diction of liturgical prayer, but to no avail, and his response to my arguments in favour of Prayerbook English was simply that it wasn't ''pastoral.'' His recourse to this Modernist pseudo-theory of Liturgy (which only threatens the Tradition of the Church) put me in such a foul for the rest of that day, and the next (and in fact I am even seething about it now, seeing in his view the final cut administered by bad theologians with the Tradition of the Church). I have never come away a better person from even seeming-trivial disagreements such as this. When people express sentiments which I repudiate, I see them very often as something strange and crooked in them as persons; almost a disease of the mind which must be cured (by me). It angers me that when I demonstrate the orthodoxy of my own views people cling to their own false views with a somewhat delusional conviction. Why do you not alter your wrong opinions and believe my correct ones?

I cannot personally conceive of being wrong in many of my beliefs, but I would happily accept correction in some if they were proved to be wrong. Why, then, do so-called traditionalists still use the lace cotta in spite of my every effort to prove how pernicious it really is? They honest to God get me so angry I might actually scream!

Rome...

''A shadow passed over Saruman's face; then it went deathly white. Before he could conceal it, they saw through his mask the anguish of a mind in doubt, loathing to stay and dreading to leave its refuge.'' (The Lord of the Rings, Book IV).

As ever Tolkien provides food for thought. I was thinking about this quote all morning of yesterday, and in fact when I got in from work spent some considerable time staring at it. You see the Roman Church sickens me, in every conceivable way. For centuries the Roman Church has developed in externals into what, to somebody like the Venerable St Bede, would be unrecognisable. St Bede was no Ultramontane Traddie sucking up to the new translation of an impoverished Missal, and concerned with pro-this, anti-that causes! Neither did he make recourse in his prayer life to superfluous books of devotions or miraculous medals. St Bede held the City of Rome, and the Bishops thereof, in honour, but in a very sober and reasonable way; and his prayer life was purely liturgical, as St Cuthbert testifies in his epistle to Cuthwin the Deacon. There was no S.R.C in the 8th century, or a Pius XII (or even a Pius V) to impose liturgical abuse on every godly and orthodox Catholic in Europe - wilful obedience to the Tradition being tantamount to open schism, and rejecting the supreme authority of the Church. The Saxon Church followed the Roman Rite as best they could, not because it was imposed upon them by a centralized Papacy, but because the Saxons received the Faith from Roman missionaries bearing Roman liturgical books, and out of an ardent affection for the then orthodox Church of Rome. One wonders whether, were St Bede a father at Vatican I, he would have been shouted down for rejecting the spurious doctrine of Papal Infallibility?

In the last 10 years (probably) I have been disillusioned with the Roman Church; with banal liturgy, with spineless bishops who never come to celebrate Liturgy in the parish (and indeed one knew of only as a name mentioned in the Anaphora), with people I have little in common with liturgically etc. The reason I left my old parish was because a parishioner said to me: ''I don't believe the same as you then,'' because I had told her about the aliturgical practice of celebrating Mass facing the wrong way. In my old parish Sunday Mass was celebrated in old ICEL English, facing the people, at a wooden Altar, with vernacular hymns in place of traditional psalmody etc. In my most recent parish Sunday Mass is celebrated facing Eastward, in Latin, according to the Old Roman Rite (of a rather late vintage, with occasional neglect of the St Lawrence Press Ordo in favour of the Latin Mass Society one - I'll never understand why they can do Palm Sunday properly but not the feast of Sts Philip and James, or the Assumption), but with a host of shortcomings. This is not about triviality, and I reject the notion that some traditions (or customs, if you will) are less important than others; Traddies may like to scoff at my preference for the ''Anglican'' surplice (I was once actually called ''Protestant'' for ranting about it), or Medieval Liturgy, because they, traditionally of course, think that what comes after is always better than what went before; but such things are measurable in the entire holistic Tradition of the Church, and are just as important as using unbleached candles for Requiems, or being careful not to omit certain ceremonies or prayers on days when the Liturgy is longer than usual.

I am not averse to the ''brick-by-brick'' approach to the restoration of Tradition in the Church. I am willing to compromise (in the time being mind you) on liturgical subtleties which can be corrected in time. However on such things as evening Mass, or deciding not to follow the Ordo, I am not going to compromise. Similarly I am not going to compromise on the use of the modern cotta in place of the traditional Surplice. The reason I am frustrated about this especially is because they have no intention whatever of eventually replacing them, and so five-ten years down the line you're still going to have a Traditionalist parish with lace cottas and a Sung (not High - you can't always procure three priests can you!) evening Mass on Holydays (this is provided Rome doesn't decide to impose its unified ''rite''). For these reasons (and other personal ones, which I will not elaborate) I couldn't possibly remain Catholic and experience a fulfilling and uplifting liturgical life. I would say that this is almost a repeat of six years ago, except now I am the one to say: ''I do not believe the same as you then.''

There are issues of authority and liturgy in my rejection of Rome. The way I see it, if Rome tried to intervene in my own way of restoring Tradition I would simply say: ''Why don't you correct the last 100 years of gross tampering in the liturgical books before you tell me what to do?'' Why can't Rome just leave people alone to just get on with it? There are people who have suffered in the last 50 years because of what Rome has done to the Liturgy...

I said before that my long term plans are unclear, as yet, but that I am interested in Western Rite Orthodoxy (for those of you who are not aware, these are Orthodox Christians who follow a liturgically ''western'' Rite - such as the Old Roman Rite, or the Book of Common Prayer, or Sarum etc). However ancestral attempts at Western Liturgy on the part of the Orthodox have been rather ham-fisted. The trouble is that you just can't agree with most of them on how best to do Liturgy. In this case I seem to have more in common with Trad Catholics in communion with Rome. I wish to retain Latin - in fact I am adamant on this - but they don't. They often insert a Byzantine Epiklesis into the Canon - I wouldn't; in fact the Roman tradition is older by not having one. I hate the Roman Church, but I dread to leave it don't you know...

Shunning...

Can anybody please tell me if they know of any Scriptural or Patristic text encouraging the practice of shunning particular groups of people?

Thanks.

Sed Dominus est omnium...

...quem Magi gaudent suppliciter adorare. (But he is the Lord of all men whom the Magi rejoice humbly to adore).

Yestereve I went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral at Ennismore Gardens for evening liturgy of Theophany, which was worth the effort. I had to run to my local railway station (I had other commitments throughout the day), and due to extensive roadworks at South Kensington had to pass within sight of the Temple of Baal (and I don't mean the Latter Day saint hall!), but these were small prices to pay. The Bishop was received at the West Doors by two ministers - I think they were Readers, but they were wearing a (what seemed to my untutored eyes) short orarion; later these two held the triple candle for the Bishop at various points, such as the incensing of the church at the beginning, with the two Deacons in procession. Quite dull to start off with, with two cantors monotoning the prayers, but after the Lord's Prayer the priests all came out from the North and South doors of the Iconostasis and it got interesting. Five loaves were solemnly blessed (Artoklasia, a kind of Antidoron I expect), and were cut up and administered to the congregation afterwards (I partook myself, after venerating the Icon of Christ's Baptism and having my head anointed by the Bishop).


It's interesting that the Protodeacon holds the orarion (stole) aloft in his right hand whilst chanting from the book. It seems a rather obsolete custom since initially the reason he held aloft the orarion was in order to keep his eye on the text. Is that a priest-monk in the background (the elderly one without a kamilavka)?

I know very little about Russian Liturgy so rather than blabber on about it I'll just let you look at some photos I took on my iPhone (apologies that the quality isn't great). It is interesting that the Russians were celebrating the Baptism; in the West we remember the visit of the Magi on Epiphany, and the Baptism and Marriage feast of Cana afterwards; all manifestations of Christ's Divine nature though.

A very blessed Epiphany to you.

The Protodeacon incensing the loaves.



The Bishop anointing one of the Cathedral priests.

Principles of Translation...

In his essay On Translating Beowulf, J.R.R Tolkien said:

''If you wish to translate, not re-write, Beowulf, your language must be literary and traditional: not because it is now a long while since the poem was made, or because it speaks of things that have since become ancient; but because the diction of Beowulf was poetic, archaic, artificial (if you will), in the day that the poem was made. Many words used by the ancient English poets had, even in the eighth century, already passed out of colloquial use for anything from a lifetime to hundreds of years...''ergo...''you will misrepresent the first and most salient characteristic of the style and flavour of the author, if in translating Beowulf, you deliberately eschew the traditional literary and poetic diction which we now possess in favour of the current and trivial.'' (J.R.R Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays, pp.54-55).

Tolkien's principles of translating Beowulf could be aptly applied to the principles of translating liturgical texts. The Latin of the Roman Rite was never a barbarous tongue understanded of the people in the Protestant sense, making use of everyday colloquialisms, with an air of familiar informality. Rather the Latin was of a more archaic, courteous style, and richer in beautiful words (comparable with, say, Túrin Turambar's first meeting with the outlaws after his flight from Doriath. The outlaws thought him an Elf because of his manner of speech and bearing), as befits the Sacred Liturgy. Evidence enough for this is the style of the Roman Canon and the Collects, neither a purely classical Latin, nor an expression of vulgarism; such words as quaesumus (''we beseech''), used in most Collects, were considered obsolete even by Cicero. Their inclusion in the language of Liturgy, which is the principle means by which we know God, is noteworthy, and dashes the Modernist belief that Liturgy in the early Church pertained to the nature of Pentecostalist tongue-wagging, or holding hands around a bowl of water filled with tea lights; incense sticks and whale music. No, the ancestral language of Liturgy in the West was lofty and non-vernacular.

Therefore, following Tolkien's principle, the English translation of the Latin original should reflect and contain the style and sentiment of the Latin, but in a way which is equally expressive of the loftiness of ''liturgical language.'' It should be utterly faithful to the sense, spirit and cadence of the Scriptural and Patristic texts of the Liturgy, but not so literal as to render these texts bald and artificial. How can you faithfully convey the sense of Liturgy, after a manner consonant with the original composers of the texts, such as St Leo the Great (whose demonstrable mastery of the Latin language was astonishing), intelligibly in English if you have so distanced yourself from its inherent loftiness of expression? The new ICEL translation of the Roman Canon, at least the draft version (the only one I have seen I'm afraid - you can view the text on this man's blog), is at best a verbose, overly literal rendering of the original; at worst clearly betrays the very principles of translation (in such a way as to make Old ICEL seem desirable! At least old ICEL is succinct - like Latin!). Is this incidental or endemic of the general incompetence of modern Rome in absolutely everything? In the last five years we have seen efforts on the part of Rome to cultivate the Sacred Liturgy, but what do we get? First, to cover up a demonstrable liturgical abuse, the Pope says that using six candles and a crucifix (itself very modern, and traceable to the bad taste of Baroque liturgy!) makes this void. Effectively he has conjured out of thin air a pseudo-theology of liturgical orientation at stark contrast with the ancestral attitude of Christian liturgical prayer, which is compass Eastward. Next we have Summorum Pontificum, which I have discussed before. And now this long-awaited translation! I have no doubts at all that Pope Benedict's desire is for the good of the Church, but either he is badly advised or he needs to stop imposing his own theologies of Liturgy on the Church. This new translation is going to make something very beautiful in the liturgical patrimony of the Roman Church a hideous travesty, in a way which candles and crucifixes won't.

King David composes the Psalms, from an Old English Psalter, circa A.D 750.

Which sounds fairer?

The heavens declare the glory of God: and the firmament proclaimeth the works of his hands. Day unto day uttereth speech: and night unto night sheweth knowledge. (Ps 18:1-2, Douay-Rheims version).

Or:

The heavens declare the glory of God, the vault of heaven proclaims his handiwork, day discourses of it to day, night to night hands on the knowledge. (Ps 19:1-2, New Jerusalem version)

This is nothing to do with Old or New ICEL, but is simply to demonstrate the very different sense that these two translations of the same Psalm verse convey. On the one hand you have a Psalm-verse worthy of liturgical expression, and the other a rather boring modern version which is unedifying. God help Catholic school children provided with such a translation, to the ruin of their taste and impetus to improve their limited vocabularies!

If Old ICEL made the modern Roman liturgy seem less sacred and more ''familiar'' than the legitimate desire to translate the ancient Roman Liturgy into Cranmerian English would have done, then New ICEL, verbose and literal, is an assault on the Roman Liturgy in a more serious way. Yes the literal sense of the text is conveyed, but has Rome not rather traded a faithful translation for a literal one, and at great cost?

Ordinariate thingy...

I offer my congratulations to the three new priests who have come over to join us on the astro turf, that is to say, the Roman Church.

However, I must speak my mind and ask what on earth possessed you? You must have been under the false impression that the Roman Church is the true church of Jesus Christ, or at least that the English Church's only connexion to the Catholic Church was from Rome. If so then good luck to you, but don't expect me to share your enthusiasm! I think that you will all go back at some point, or join the Orthodox Church. I know of many ex-Anglicans who once again became Anglicans because something about the Roman Church put them off.

So what will be the reason of your going back? The culture? The Liturgy? The negative doctrine? The people? The Bishops? Rome herself, perhaps? As for me it was a bitter brew with all these ingredients, and Traddieland stirred the cup. It is a fact that only a handful of Roman Catholics worldwide know anything about Liturgy, and most of these are accused of some heresy (like me). Traditionalists, as a rule, are ignorant of Liturgy because of their blind obsession with the revival of 1950s Catholicism, and pro-this and anti-that causes (not to mention their Ultramontanism). Since Liturgy is more important than all that, I would rather go where it is done properly, or at least tastefully, even if this means beyond the confines of Roman jurisdiction. I now have no qualms at all about serving Anglo-Catholic liturgy. My long-term plans ecclesiologically are nebulous, as yet, though 20-30 years from now I can see myself in a ''Western Rite Orthodox'' parish in ROCOR using the Liturgy of Old Sarum. So no lace (the very use of which I find so utterly repugnant as to warrant a most severe punishment), no big six, no Great Elevation etc, just pure Medieval Liturgy, unmutilated by popery.

If Roman Catholics find my views about the Papacy objectionable then perhaps they'd care to make earnest study of the history of Liturgy since the Council of Trent. It's quite grim reading to be honest, with succession after succession of Popes doing whatever takes their fancy with it.

Obedience unto Purification...

Et postquam consummati sunt dies octo, ut circumcideretur puer, vocatum est nomen eius Iesus, quod vocatum est ab angelo priusquam in utero conciperetur. (Luke 2:24).

Today is the feast of the Circumcision of the Lord, and the Octave Day of Christmas. It is one of those feasts in the liturgical Kalendar where the reality of Christ's twofold consubstantiality is emphasised. On Christmas Day you have the picture of the frail Infant, drawing a veil over the immensity of His Majesty (as St Leo wrote in the Tome). On the eighth day you compelled to understand that Christ became so truly human that not only did He depend upon His blessed mother's milk, but that He condescended to undergo the decrees of the Law.

As you know I am very fond of St Bede the Venerable, whose Homilies and Scriptural exegeses oftentimes surpass even St Augustine's for coherence and eloquence of expression. What shall we say of this Circumcision, this first shedding of the Infant Christ's precious blood? St Bede wrote a wonderful Homily for today's feast, In die festo circumcisionis domini, which you will find in G.A Giles' collection of 1843 (I don't own this huge work, but would love to). St Bede, following St Augustine of course, interprets the mystery of the Lord's Circumcision as a type of His Passion according to the flesh and a lattice window, as it were, through which we can glimpse at His glorious Resurrection, and by extension, the general resurrection of all in Christ. ''You ought to know,'' he says, "that Circumcision under the Law wrought the same healing against the wound of Original Sin as does the Baptism in this time of revealed Grace, except that under Circumcision they were not able to enter the gate of the heavenly kingdom.'' I will not belabour the obvious parallel between Innocent III's exposition several centuries later, but St Bede went on to conclude that the mystery of the Circumcision of Christ was integral to the mystery of the Incarnation itself. Since Man must be redeemed after a manner consonant with his nature, it was necessary for Christ, as a true Son of Abraham, our father in faith, to undergo Circumcision out of righteous obedience to the Law.

Christ ''submitted to Circumcision as decreed by the Law. He who was without any stain of pollution did not reject the remedy by which the flesh of sin is made clean.'' Christ was obedient to the Law, as our divine Legifer, ''that He might commend to us the necessary virtue of obedience by an outstanding example. Just as He submitted Himself to the waters of Baptism, by which He wished the people to be washed clean of the stain of sin, undergoing it Himself, not from necessity, but to set an example. Purification, both by the Law and by the Gospel, which He needed not, the Lord did not despise and did not hesitate to undergo.'' In the mystery of the Circumcision, and of the Lord's Baptism, the mystery of the Incarnation is made whole, and the gulf sundering the Law and the Gospel is bridged, for Christ Himself willed it. Ultimately we are, by putting on Christ, ''circumcised,'' as it were, from all stain of mortality. Circumcision, says holy Bede, is an eschatological type of that veritable cleansing of our hearts, where we look forward to our true and complete circumcision, when, on the Day of Judgement, all souls having put off the corruption of the flesh will enter the forecourt of the heavenly kingdom to behold forever in blessedness the beautiful countenance of the Creator.

What miserable drones...

...and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric? (Henry Plantagenet is said to have shouted these words at his castle in Rouen, according to his chroniclers, upon hearing the news that the newly-returned Becket wouldn't admit those who had remained loyal to the King to the communion of Christ's Church).

I shamefully neglected to mention one of my favourite Saints in the Martyrology on the occasion of his feast day on the 29th, though since we are curiously within four Octaves (that of the Nativity, of St Stephen Protomartyr, of St John the Evangelist, and of course the man himself, St Thomas of Canterbury), I think I might be forgiven - at any rate I have many other cares and commitments presently. St Thomas of Canterbury was one of the unlikely heroes of the Angevin Empire, a true defender of the rights of the Church, unlikely though this was considering that during his time as Chancellor he was notorious for his worldliness. Henry II (the greatest of all our Medieval kings, for all his faults) desired royal control over the Church, and his choice of Becket as the new Archbishop of Canterbury in 1161 was probably to this end (incidentally he was only a Deacon when appointed to the post - it is a Trad myth that there were no permanent Deacons in the West until Paul VI came on the scene; rather permanent Deacons disappeared once ''Low'' Mass was invented, and the wise initiative of Paul VI was rather a restoration, not an innovation). Unfortunately it didn't work out as the King had planned, and in 1164 Becket opposed in the most militant language Henry's proposal that the English clergy submit to the ''customs of the Realm'', at Clarendon Palace. He was exiled (on trumped up charges of improper use of funds as Chancellor), with a small retinue, to the Cistercian Abbey of Pontigny. In 1170 he returned, after intervention from Rome, and was reinstated as Archbishop, though his reign was short-lived. On 29th December 1170 he was murdered whilst about to celebrate Vespers with the monks of Canterbury. (As an aside, should I start saying Evensong instead of Vespers? I must say I agree with Tolkien (and I think Fortescue) who used Saxon words in place of Romance ones. At any rate I already say Mattins instead of Matins).

This image, evidently from a Book of Hours made long after the life of St Thomas, is interesting in that it mistakes the Office at which the Saint was martyred for a kind of ''low'' Mass (as it was then - probably not in the Tridentine sense of ''Low Mass'') rather than Vespers. By all accounts and long-standing tradition St Thomas was martyred as he was about to celebrate Vespers in the Cathedral - Vespera erat, nox longissima instabat, as the account of William Fitzstephen, an eyewitness, has it. Notice that the Archbishop is wearing a Sarum blue Chasuble.

Edward Grim has this to say of St Thomas' final hour (I can't for the life of me find St John of Salisbury's account, but I have it somewhere).

Without delay the sacrilegious men entered the house of peace and reconciliation with swords drawn; indeed the sight alone as well as the rattle of arms inflicted not a small amount of horror on those who watched. And those knights who approached the confused and disordered people who had been observing vespers but, by now, had run toward the lethal spectacle exclaimed in a rage: "Where is Thomas Becket, traitor of the king and kingdom?" No one responded and instantly they cried out more loudly, "Where is the archbishop?" Unshaken he replied to this voice as it is written, "The righteous will be like a bold lion and free from fear," he descended from the steps to which he had been taken by the monks who were fearful of the knights and said in an adequately audible voice, "Behold I am here, no traitor to the king but priest of God; what doth it please you?" And Thomas, who had previously told them that he had no fear of them added, "Here I am ready to suffer in the name of He who redeemed me with His blood; God forbid that I should flee on account of your swords or that I should depart from righteousness." With these words, at the foot of a pillar, he turned to the right. On one side was the altar of the blessed Mother of God, on the other the altar of the holy Confessor Benedict - through whose example and prayers he had been crucified to the world and his lusts; he endured whatever the murderers did to him with such constancy of the soul that he seemed as if he were not of flesh. The murderers pursued him and said, "Absolve and restore to communion those whom you have excommunicated and return to office those whom have been suspended." To these words Thomas replied, "No penance hath been made, so I will not absolve them." "Then you," they said, "will now die and will suffer what you have earned." "And I," he said, "am prepared to die for my Lord, so that in my blood the church will attain liberty and peace; but by the authority of Almighty God I forbid that you hurt my men, either cleric or layman, in any way." The glorious martyr acted conscientiously with foresight for his men and prudently on his own behalf, so that no one near him would be hurt as he hastened toward Christ. It was fitting that the soldier of the Lord and the martyr of the Saviour adhered to His words when he was sought by the impious, "If it is me you seek, let them leave."

St Thomas of Canterbury, pray for us.

Sacraments...

There are no Sacraments outside the Church. You cannot have ''valid,'' albeit ''illicit,'' Sacraments which do not confer Grace. Otherwise, what would be the point of the Sacrament?

Hits...

I receive lots of ''hits'' from various Universities around the world; from Oxford, Cambridge, various colleges of the University of London, Durham, Princeton, even some German and Italian institutions. I wonder...do the people who read this blog from those various ''sausage factories'' (as Tolkien's tutor Dr Wright said of Oxford in...when was it? 1915 I think) realise that I don't in fact have a Degree, the vast majority of my friends do, and that this is a source of tremendous grief to me? I look at various young people going to University, simply because it is ''the done thing'' nowadays; they come away after three years of study in some absurd topic (such as ''Media Studies''), and have better job prospects than I do because they have a piece of paper...

I studied Divinity for four years at the University of London, but walked out because the work was tedious, I rarely submitted coursework on time (the little that I did submit was first class), and spent most of the time either in the Library in the Classics section and perusing things like 19th century Breviaries and the Sarum Missal, or off squandering my savings on irrelevant books (many of which now embarrass me!) and clothes. Now I am almost 23 years old, I am still living at home because I can't afford to move out, I have no savings, and I am still in the what-I-thought-would-be-only-temporary retail position I started five and a half years ago. I am trying now to compose a personal statement for a UCAS application to study Classics somewhere. Now what do I say? How do I articulate ''I have done nothing since I left school five years ago'' in a way which will successfully get me enrolled upon a Classics Degree (which I know I am more than capable of doing) at a prestigious University?

It's this frustration which probably underlies many of the bitter posts I write on this blog.