I was intending to tell you about my retreat in Madrid.  It certainly was an interesting time.  Three things stand out:

• we had hours of great theological conversation sat in street cafes drinking coffee in brilliant sunshine
• we did the tour of the Bernabeu Stadium  -  home of Real Madrid  -  and even got to sit in the home team dug-out
• we got thrown out of a monastery when my mobile went off!

But I'll have to return to that later, because something very surprising has happened.  I've got a mention in the Daily Mail!  (For those readers who are not familiar with English tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mail is  -  well, it's the Daily Mail.  It's pretty far to the right of centre, it's not the most reliable source of news in the UK, and if you're ever seen with a copy you lose a lot of credibility with a lot of your friends!)

Quentin Lett's political column in the issue of the paper for 26th September, '09 has picked up on the fact that I've been invited to be the speaker at the service to mark the opening of the Conservative Party Conference which is due to be held in Manchester next week.  The headline for the article gives a fair idea of the standard of penetrating journalism that follows:

Holy moly,  the Tories have gone all happy-clappy

The happy-clappy thing is bad enough in itself.  But the article gets worse.  The bit that refers to me reads as follows:

The preacher will be a shavenheaded, ex-Salvation Army stalwart, Chick Yuill (his books include And God Created Sex).

As everyone who knows me is aware, I've long since lost my hair, and what's left I keep fairly short.  But to describe me as 'shaven-headed'  makes me sound like some kind of skinhead!  He probably thinks I'm a soccer hooligan.  And the reference to the fact that I've written 'And God Created Sex...' says everything about the kind of stories in which this newspaper delights.

But the bit that really annoyed me was the reference to Hannah Atkins, an intelligent and gifted young musician and social activist, who is taking part in the service:

Worshippers will be helped towards prayer by a 'social justice artist' called Hannah Atkins. Blonde cutie Hannah specialises in folktronica music, 'achingly simple and never easy to describe'

I'm tempted to ask when this sad man last visited planet earth!  What kind of journalist writes sexist garbage like that and what kind of responsible newspaper would publish an article that describes a woman as a 'blonde cutie'?  The bit about me makes me laugh.  The bit about Hannah is just downright insulting and makes me plain mad.

(If you want to check out the whole article just Google   Daily Mail  Chick Yuill)

But here's the point of telling you this.  The article says so much about how some people view the Christian Church.  So I'd value your prayers that at the service I will speak courteously but courageously about the responsbility of the church in a democracy and about the relationship between the gospel and politics.

I'll let you know what happens.

And, as always  -  if you have been, thanks for reading this.