Condoning condoms comes as a relief

THE FRIDAY THING: HAVE you heard a collective sigh, more of relief than of pleasure, from your Catholic friends now that the Pope has decided that, in certain circumstances, condoms can be worn (only during sex acts of course, they aren’t a fashion statement)?

Pope Benedict XVI, bless his cotton socks, has announced a new position (nothing to do with the Karma Sutra), lifting a ban on any form of contraception other than abstinence (which definitely does not make the heart grow fonder).

He says that condoms can be justified “in certain cases and “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection”

The interpretation of what is or maybe reducing the risk of infection will vary, as indeed did the interpretation of Pope John Paul II’s edict in 1993 that artificial birth control was “intrinsically evil” which was simply daft.

The so-called rhythm method has long been top of the papal pops and a firm favourite of the Catholic Church but whether that is the rhythms of JLS, Lady Gaga or Leonard Cohen has never been explained. Maybe some celestial choir under the duvet, though some might think that more than a trifle kinky. I am certainly not aware of any encyclical that covers the sex lives of choirs or footballers come to that.

Many Catholic couples control the size of their family according to what they can afford. It has nothing to do with religion, thank heaven or whatever.


WE should take heart from the fact that even the dafter of our politicians — particularly the Lib-Dems — did not succeed in ditching the pound and taking us into the euro.
The new currency, hailed as the future gold standard for the whole of Europe, eliminating all debt and wrapping the economy of all EEC countries in the warm comfort blanket of security, has proved to be as solid and reliable as the Lib-Dems promise not to support any increase in tuition fees.

What is particularly barmy is that while we avoided the euro we will have to pay billions to support those who turfed out their own currency to take on this modern-day Monopoly money and now find themselves neck deep in the financial latrines. It’s a bizarre concept. I mean if a neighbour owed his milkman £50 would those folk who buy their milk from the Co-op have to help out by chipping in some milk money?


FINAL WORD: Taking into account the number of people getting ratlegged on cheap booze every week, the 14,300 prescriptions for heroin substitute methadone issued last year and the booming industry that is cannabis farms in Oldham, is anyone, apart from you and me, compos mentis? And I’m not even sure about you: you are reading this, after all...