On this, the first day of a new year, the outside broadcast facilities of Sloggers’ Roost – ‘Tingling SR, it keeps your teeth fresh and razor sharp’ – are going live this morning to hear the much sought-after New Year’s Day sermon from the controversial vicar, the very Reverend Sir Gawaine Bingeworthy Cutte-Herbertloose, delivered as ever to his devoted flock at the Church of Saint Fauci-in-the-Mire, Suffix…..and to be repeated later in the day at the Cavalier Roundhead public house, Loaders Crossing.

The hymn preceding the sermon is drawing to a close, and so let’s go over there right away

“….and oh what transport of delight

from thy Cialis floooooweeerrrth….Aaaaaamen”.

SFX: much shifting of sore bottoms among the congregation. Nervous coughing.

“For the Lemon shall go down with the Lime.…….for the Lemon shall go down with the Lime….this, my children, sheep and other assorted sentient farmyard beings, is of course from Saint Hunter’s Peawhistle to the Ukrainians, verses 0-30 in five seconds.

“In these dark days of perfidy, what a blessed relief it is to know that there is still sanity in our World, when our rulers and betters remind us that there is more to this short life than mere science.

“Our beloved Saviours’ servants have been let down by Prophets who told them the science was settled: so indeed, did they not transmit that accepted truth faithfully to us? They did.

“And so it is that – against all bigoted expectations – this has veritably turned out to be a complete pile of anti-science stallion toss sufficient unto the production of endless magic mushrooms.

“Hence the central theme of my sermon today: for the Lemon shall go down with the Lime.

“Harken unto me, ewes and rams and also, if necessary, ROMS: if the blogger should forget the Lemon/Lime thing, his or her reward shall be eternal destitution. For let us face it, gin and tonic with ice and lemon tastes pretty damn good, as does lager and lime especially if you’re a girlie. But get real here my flock, gin and lime tastes a lot like shit, and lemon-flavoured lager is like topping up your Budweiser with Flash floor cleaner.

“And so I am here to tell you brethren, the Lemon does NOT go down with the Lime, any more than some gay Lion is remotely likely to go down with (or even on) the Lamb. As our Lord said, ‘Blessed are the realists, for they get out a lot more than Hollywood Democrats’.

“Today is the first of January, and two thousand-twenty-three stretches before us like The Great Escape on telly during Christmas Day afternoon – a familiar slough of repetition suggesting strongly that it is highly unlikely to be any different to two thousand-twenty-two. I am reminded in this context of my old school song, “Let us now love famous men, and our fathers’ new Bugattis”, if only because it sums up to perfection what is wrong with this New Normal World Order that silly Kiwi tart is always boffing on about.

“I speak, of course, about the Lemon of dystopia and the Lime of philanthropy being applied to one and the same person….a person who, for example, offers us happiness based on having nothing – and to prove the point, has $18 million and three houses himself, while looking permanently miserable. You may choose to believe that Herr Schlaphead von Davos is merely a petrified Nazi who likes dressing up as Darth Varder while sporting a frilly chef’s hat on his member, and the evidence is indeed in your favour.

“But philanthropy as a definition in the New Normal is one of innate contradiction. George Soros is routinely referred to by CNN as a philanthropist, and revels in the frankness with which he lists the events behind the reputation, such as handing over Ghetto Jews to the gas chambers and trying to destroy the Pound. Equally, Mr William Gates is banned from India thanks to his “vaccination” death count in that country, has made illegal monopolism into an art form, stolen the patents of others and consorted with depraved men who pimp little girls and then kill themselves in the head from close range. And Elongated Muskvich is dubbed a libertarian thanks to cleaning up Twitter until it is, as now, low in Truth, high in Drivel, and short on tweeters.

“What should we, as God-fearing Christians, do in the light of this lack of clarity over whether – for example Anthony Fauci – is a public health lime or a mass-murdering lemon? I once visited the small African country of Lumbago, and discovered that the oranges there are often green, avocados the shape and consistency of cannon balls, but Limes frequently yellow of skin and impossible to tell from lemons. And it seemed to me that there is a moral parallel here because, metaphorically speaking, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and as my great Aunt Boadicea used to say, fine words do not butter parsnips.

“Allow me if I may to read you a quotation from Lumbago’s President Hoomee:

‘Lemon tree very pretty and de lemon flower am sweet but de froot of de evil lemon is impossiball to eat’

“So we conclude that every contemporary philanthropist has an upside to the downside, and an inside unpredictable from the outside, which is a clear case of Offside or, as the American colonialists would have it, ‘Yer get ter kiss alodda frogs’.

“The telling wisdom in this instance is, I suspect, to be found among the writings of ancient Greek philosopher Stavros Pluto the Younger. He observed:

‘Harken not unto what our leaders say, for loquacious rhetoric sinks not the battleship. Rather, observe closely their actions, for it is through such investigation that Delphic Truth shall be yours, viz, IABATO – It’s All Bollocks and That’s Official’

“Or as the Frogs are wont to observe, ‘Plus ça change, plus reste la meme chose’

“And now, let us all rejoice in Hymn Number 106, ‘A lovely God art thou/ In everything and yet somehow/ a champion of the meek and mild/ and also dear old Oscar Wilde'”

Meet the New Year….same as the Old Year

John Ward is at least three quarters of the way through his life, but flatly denies that he is a Grumpy Old Misery-Knickers. Given the opportunity, he would dip Anthony Fauci in a vat of boiling molasses, because the chances of the existing judiciary jailing him are minus 56 per cent