This side of an old friend was part of the "dialogue practice" originally written for El, who never got it because she likes it short and I didn't want to blind her with science; though Tony came up when the WG had swapped views on comparative religions and the moment came for me to ask:
"You know what we got to start the Third Millennium? 'The Passion according to Mel Gibson', who's got a dad even more bonkers than Guillaume Tell's.
Even Tony went to see that and gave me a blog piece ('Agony, ketchup and artificial additives'). Deeply unimpressed he was."
Turmoil in the Pews
 "I read it. What a relief," said the WG. "Even I was surprised to learn he's a signed-up Papist who wobbles his way to Mass on Sundays and enjoys what he can hear of the music.
When the United Nations took Tony on, he was soon an authority on the navels of the world. I like a man who rises to the occasion.”
“Do you think I should go to Mass too?”
“No. Tony says he’s been excommunicated, but even so I've an inkling what he tells that Father of theirs. Take last week:
'Sorry I said "fuck" 17 times today and still lust after... well, you know who they are. I can't help it.
If I'm good, could you send Nick’s blogging chum Lee down from the top floor for a natter and see your way to planting a stick of Viagra in my flowerpot, not that I'll need it, but just in case?
We'll pretend it's a miracle.
'Quite the rake I was, but the missionary position was really never my cup of tea, if you don't mind. Young Nick didn't believe me until he realised my stories were too good to make up. I was chasing tail at UNESCO, before the US ambassador to the place realized it really stood for UN Endless Sex and Copulation Organisation. She cut off the cash flow, the killjoy.
'Who was it who took my car for a tank and drove it backwards over her parents' flowerbeds when we were trying to keep it all quiet?
‘Now those were the days! Getting all my clothes pinched on a Bulgarian beach and having to find the seedy so-called hotel in my birthday suit. God, that fucking place was the pits!
Turkey and the monumental old erections the lady guides drooled over there were rather more diverting.
 Also, Father, does it matter if I find the Pope a pretty fallible old fool on occasion?
Would you let me keep my marbles for another week and come back for a song and dance next Sunday? It's a bore when they fall out like my hearing aid while I'm on the floor shuffling all my ancient papers around.
'You know my eyes aren't what they were. That's the way it is.
'I’ve always told that idle devil Nick the way it is and what thanks did I get for it?He never listened to me or anyone else till he met one of them: still over-sexed, over-paid and over here.
Frightful buggers, most of 'em. Still, Nick said she's not like the others.
I've met a few nice Yank women myself in my time, you know.
Take Lee. Nick says she just strips down to bare essentials in summer because she’s a cat right under a hot tin roof and cheerfully tells people all about it.
Must say there's nothing like an open mind without any clothes on as she’s writing up what’s in it. Goodness, did I tell you about the one who ... wait a minute.
There we are.
 'I only go to union meetings because I can't hear all the nonsense being spouted but enjoy being a respected venerable nuisance who talks a bit of sense just when nobody wants any.
That's the way it is, Father, that's the way it is...
What was that? Oh, I’m supposed to stand up again. Bloody nuisance, ooh ... aah... there we are.
And now I've lost track.
'When I was in Ind-ya...'"
"WG?"
"Shut up. But why’s he been excommunicated?”
“Told you himself. If he took the food and the drink and confessed, he’d have to mean it, when he knows perfectly well he doesn’t and can’t wait to do it again.”
“You're not thinking of giving this to Eleanor are you?"
"That was your idea, remember? These days, you simply can't tell what might happen."
One of the last times I saw Tony, he was at the top of a ladder. Redecorating.
I was far more alarmed than he was.
9:22:25 PM 
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