Our shrine is unusual in many ways, one is that we have so mendicants. In our case we have an excuse. We provide them with ‘employment’ in that they keep the Sinecurists’ Grand Stair not merely clean but polished. This is all well and good, the Grand Stair is a credit to the city, but … More Cleaning up.
You know what it’s like, just when you think things are difficult, somebody in high authority finds a new and exciting way to make them worse. I mentioned that one year we had a worse than usual summer plague in Port Naain. I suppose that there’s one every year, but they rarely escape from the … More Visits from on high
When you reach the age of old Prophet Weden, incumbents are transitory creatures, here one decade and gone the next. He remembers perhaps a dozen although to be fair he does seem to get them a bit mixed up. There again they were something of a mixed bag. The first he remembers was Fabbat, who … More The unthinking malevolence of petty clerks
We were discussing fundraising for the shrine and the meeting, under the stern eye of a lesser canon, made little useful headway. Eventually we all made our excuses and decamped to a quiet bar before we made our various ways home. One of our number, Paps Murgaton, who had been a usurer before becoming a … More Working one’s assets
It has to be said that at the Shrine of Aea in her Aspect as the Personification of Tempered Enthusiasm, our congregation is not burdened with excess wealth. Thus whilst it is Maljie’s duty as temple warden, at every service, to pass amongst them with a collection plate, in case somebody has the urge to … More Quantum theology
It has to be confessed that Majie was a sensible patient. She took seriously the advice given to her by those charged with her care, only ignoring it when it suited her purposes. Still she made good progress and soon reached the stage where her left arm was no longer strapped across her chest. Instead … More The sedan chair bearer’s story
Obviously as a writer I understand literary criticism. Equally obviously, as a decent human being and a poet of genius, I would not sink so low as to use it. As you know, the sole purpose of inflicting literary criticism on a book is to inform the purchaser of that work that they have made … More Literary criticism and theological training
It has to be said that Laxey and I were perhaps a little too pleased with ourselves over the building jobs we’d tackled. To be fair I think that we’d made a worthy attempt at the jobs and had saved the Shrine the handful of silver it would have cost to have the job done … More For whom the bell tolls?
Some people are notorious for their ability to enjoy ill health. They revel in it. They take to their beds with alacrity and when the inevitable stream of visitors arrive bearing fruit or delicacies for the invalid, they are met by the patient coughing pathetically, but still managing to smile faintly in an ‘oh so … More Dressing appropriately
Tallis Steelyard 