As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:
Tonight I am very much looking forward to the annual dinner of the Nailsea Mountain Rescue Team. What's that you say? There are no mountains in Nailsea? Quite so. But if any should appear we will be one of the few low-level towns in the south-west that is prepared.
I suspect you smell a rat. And you would be right to do so. It is a spoof organisation consisting of a bunch of people who like a bit of a drink and then to walk off the calories. It's a joke, made all the funnier by the absolutely straight-faced way the members explain what they are doing.
Last summer, on one walk back, the team discovered a couple in the middle of a field who looked in need of rescue. Closer inspection revealed that their horizontal position was intentional and the presence of the team undesirable. Oops.
We all need a bit of fun. Even Shakespeare's greatest tragedy King Lear has a fool in it to remind the king he is flawed. Writing to the Corinthian Christians St Paul adopts the style of a fool and boasts of his weaknesses. The jester reminds us we are all human and full of frailty.
We can get a bit over-serious about bad news. Tourist offices closing. Medical money misused. School league tables drawing attention to failure. All doomed.
So tonight, as the coxswain of the Backwell Lifeboat joins us as our special guest I will take my chaplaincy duties responsibly and then enjoy the company of a bunch of folk who, from time to time, don't take life too seriously, and make sure they have climbed every mountain in Nailsea. Please don't call me early on Saturday morning.
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