I begin with a splendid little joke played on his congregation by our parish priest over a year ago. In the notices on the weekly sheet (proper Mass readings and prayers on the obverse side) an announcement appeared to the effect that, unfortunately, because of new health and safety regulations, the burning of votive candles before the church’s various shrines would shortly be illegal, and that the Swedish firm of Arvin Olaf would therefore shortly be installing tasteful electric candles, which would light up when a coin was placed in the appropriate slot. This notice naturally produced an apoplectic response in most members of the congregation who read it (including myself, I have to admit), and after Mass we all descended in our rage on Fr Daniel, the then newly appointed parish priest, who was incomprehensibly (he is a very serious and clearly prayerful young man) highly delighted by our response, which he greeted with ill-contained laughter. Is it true, we spluttered? And what’s so funny about it? Well, he replied, look again at the name of the Swedish electric candle firm. What? Arvin Olaf, he said. Think about it. Arvin Olaf. ’Avin a laugh? It was a tease. We, of course, responded with slightly shame-faced laughter, which became more uninhibited the more we thought about it. But what was he saying? Don’t believe everything you read, even in the parish notices? Or was it, don’t get so het up about unimportant things? 'Elf and safety, political correctness, and a whole load of other issues, illegal immigrants on our benefits, the general moral collapse of our society and so on, are (some of them) serious enough: but maybe we need to think a bit more about what’s involved rather than simply relapsing into “disgusted, Tunbridge Wells” mode. I only suggest this because with advancing years I detect this tendency more and more in myself. The danger is that it induces a willingness to believe anything at all which feeds our prejudices. To some extent, this is inevitable. Don’t we tend to read the newspaper least likely to outrage our prejudices and most likely to build them up? But a certain initial scepticism about such information is probably a good idea. Fortified by the Arvin Olaf incident, perhaps, I am glad to say that I was not taken in by the following “news item”, which we were sent by a relative now living permanently abroad, as an example of what has happened to this country (possibly in an unconscious justification for leaving it forever?)