Display of humour deficit

A nice change from the Three Caballeros doing their respective unfunny stand-up routines was provided this week by the leaking of a Foreign Office memo suggesting ways in which the Pope might be encouraged to improve his image during his visit to England—marketing a range of own brand condoms, opening an abortion clinic, spending a night in a Council flat, apologising for the Armada and other ingenious ideas hardly likely to be acceptable to the top brass at the Vatican, let alone the old boy himself. Much huffing and puffing from those who thought this bit of drollery was a shameful attack on a much-loved institution.

It was even said that the authors were ridiculing Catholic teaching. This would surely be an act of supererogation: I mean, it would be like throwing mud at a sewage farm, wouldn't it?