Basically a number of councillors got their knickers in a twist when the Georgina Galpin, The Mayor of Havering, invited a Pearly Queen to lead prayers at an meeting of the full council on 17 October. Dressed in her full regalia she recited the Cockney Lord’s Prayer:
HELLO, Dad, up there in good ol' Heaven,
Your name is well great and holy, and we respect you, Guv.
We hope we can all 'ave a butcher's at Heaven and be there as soon as possible: and we want to make you happy, Guv, and do what you want 'ere on earth, just like what you do in Heaven.
Guv, please give us some Uncle Fred, and enough grub and stuff to keep us going today, and we hope you'll forgive us when we cock things up, just like we're supposed to forgive them who annoy us and do dodgy stuff to us.
There's a lot of dodgy people around, Guv; please don't let us get tempted to do bad things. Help keep us away from all the nasty, evil stuff, and keep that dodgy Satan away from us, 'cos you're much stronger than 'im.
Your the Boss, God, and will be for ever, innit? Cheers, Amen.
The words were sincerely delivered but Residents’ leader Cllr Barbara Matthews lodged a formal complaint with the borough’s Chief Executive “Many members were upset by it.. Most of us felt it was in poor taste and tacky and we certainly do not want a similar repeat version.... I found it extremely offensive although I am personally not religious at all”
So it seems that the cockney Lord’s Prayer did not go down well. Wel perhaps the Mayor could try something different – The prayer has been translated into just about every living and a lot of dead and artificial languages. Perhaps the councillors would like to celebrate the lost linguistic diversity of the British Isles and recite the Norn version (Norn was a norse language spoken in northern Scotland, the Orkneys and the Shetlands. It died out sometime around 1800)
Favor i ir i chimrie,
Helleur ir i nam thite,
gilla cosdum thite cumma,
veya thine mota vara gort
o yurn sinna gort i chimrie,
ga vus da on da dalight brow vora
Firgive vus sinna vora sin vee Firgive sindara mutha vus,
lyv vus ye i tumtation,
min delivera vus fro olt ilt, Amen.
If that’s successful then perhaps a celebration of the possibility of life on other worlds with a rendition of the prayer in Klingon
ngeHbejDungDaq vavma'
quvtaH ponglIj
pawlI' wo'lIj
Qu'lIj pIrInqang
pupbeHchoHlI' yuQ
HIjtaH sojmaj
not bortaS junej
vaj not bortas Dinejlu'
ghotlhu'moHbe'
mIghwI'vo' jupol
reH wo' je HoS je batlh Daghaj
If they wish to be really ambitious (and massively reduce the time available for council business) then there’s the binary version
01001111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100110 01100001 01110100
01101000 01100101 01110010 00101100 00100000 00001010 01110111
01101000 01101111 00100000 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000
01101001 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110110
01100101 01101110 00101100 00100000 00001010 01101000 01100001
01101100 01101100 01101111 01110111 01100101 01100100 00100000
01100010 01111001 00100000 01010100 01101000 01111001 00100000
01101110 01100001 01101101 01100101 00101110 00100000 00001010
01010100 01101000 01111001 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110
01100111 01100100 01101111 01101101 00100000 01100011 01101111
01101101 01100101 00101100 00100000 00001010 01110100 01101000
01111001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000
01100010 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 01100101
00100000 00001010 01101111 01101110 00100000 01100101 01100001
01110010 01110100 01101000 00100000 01100001 01110011 00100000
01101001 01110100 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001
01101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110110 01100101
01101110 00101110 00100000 00001010 01000111 01101001 01110110
01100101 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000
01101001 01110011 00100000 01100100 01100001 01111001 00100000
01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100100 01100001 01101001
01101100 01111001 00100000 01100010 01110010 01100101 01100001
01100100 00101100 00100000 00001010 01100001 01101110 01100100
00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01101001 01110110
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01110010 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110000
01100001 01110011 01110011 01100101 01110011 00101100 00100000
00001010 01100001 01110011 00100000 01110111 01100101 00100000
01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101
00100000 01110100 01101000 01101111 01110011 01100101 00100000
01110111 01101000 01101111 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100101
01110011 01110000 01100001 01110011 01110011 00100000 01100001
01100111 01100001 01101001 01101110 01110011 01110100 00100000
01110101 01110011 00101110 00100000 00001010 01001100 01100101
01100001 01100100 00100000 01110101 01110011 00100000 01101110
01101111 01110100 00100000 01101001 01101110 01110100 01101111
00100000 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110000 01110100 01100001
01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 00101100 00100000 00001010
01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01100100 01100101 01101100
01101001 01110110 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110101 01110011
00100000 01100110 01110010 01101111 01101101 00100000 01100101
01110110 01101001 01101100 00101110 00100000 00001010 01000110
01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110
01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000
01100101 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 01100100
01101111 01101101 00101100 00100000 00001010 01100001 01101110
01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110000
01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00101100 00100000 01100001
01101110 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000
01100111 01101100 01101111 01110010 01111001 00100000 00001010
01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101
01110010 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100101
01110110 01100101 01110010 00101110 00001010 01000001 01101101
01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000
I somehow think that the council would go apeshit if someone ever offered the Polari version of Psalms 23
1 The Duchess is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 she maketh me to lie down in green pastures: she leadeth me beside the still aquas.
3 she restoreth my nishta lucoddy: she leadeth me in the paths of bonaness for his name's sake.
4 any road up, though I mince through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no nana: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy trolling fakement they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my eke with lube; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall troll after me all the days of my life: and I will lett in the lattie of the Duchess for ever.
12 comments:
Hallelujah! Or should that be holy shit? Why was that old bat getting so upset if she's not even religious? Is being an illogical, pompous old fart a prerequisite for getting elected as a local councillor? Thanks for the laugh!
To be honest Siani, I would have thought a sincere prayer was fine. It's not as if she said teh Busman's prayer! I find it a bit rich that the Residnets' leader was outraged given that she is not religious.. on the otehr hand why am I blogging this????
It was sublime, Jams. Made my day.
A pretty daft protest in my view Snoopy!
"I found it extremely offensive although I am personally not religious at all”"
Oh drop dead you old baggage.
This sums up the whole religious offence issue for me in a nutshell. I find the whole idea of religion offensive, and the idea that you should respect these looney beliefs 'just because' really gets on my nerves.
Stuff the lot of them.
Outraged of Tunbridge Wells.
To be honest Chris, I've got no problem with prayer or how people pray. It was the response to something untraditional that got my goat. I would love to hear them do the prayer in binary!
Or what about Morse Code, that should keep them busy!
I loved the Cockney version of the bible, never did get around to buying a copy.
Lol Alison.. or the prayer in semaphore!
The councillor probably believes that the Lord's Prayer was originally written in Queen's English - and would probably have been offended by the way Jesus would have said it in colloquial Hebrew (If that's what he spoke ...)
Porpbably so Liz. Although not religious myself it struck me as such a stupid response to a sincere prayer
Local politicians are the same the world over. Very interesting post.
I daresay they are. Kings of their middens?
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