Field Guide to the English Clergy

Fergus Butler-Gallie, Field Guide to the English Clergy (Oneworld)

In a culture that has become so commodified it must be difficult to establish oneself as a 'personality' but if the Rev. Richard Coles can do it, surely Fergus Butler-Gallie can have a shot at filling the vacancy that has remained unfilled since the passing of Derek Nimmo. With the universities full of academics who really want to make television programmes, if ever Channel 5 want their own cut-price version of A.N. Wilson, Fergus will be top of the short list.
In a clever reversal of the usual process, his biographical note says he once 'accidentally appeared on Only Connect' when we all know the correct procedure is to introduce yourself on Only Connect by saying you've written a book about eccentric English clergymen, for men they all are.
There are several famous names among the brief lives catalogued. Spooner and Jack Russell have passed into the language; Webb-Ellis is the Rugby man credited with being the first rugby man, Michael Ramsay was Archbishop of Canterbury and Sydney Smith will be a name familiar to many.
It is a short book and after a few pages I thought that might be a blessing, with Fergus's manner and humour being rather more predictable and trite than one might expect from such an intellect but one either becomes accustomed to it or he improves as the chapters fly by in their lively fashion. I had begun to enjoy these slightly repetitious accounts of lazy, unemployable, gorging, boozing, libidinous spendthrift men of the cloth before I was genuinely taken by the phrase in which one international adventurer is admired for his 'ability to remain unmurdered'. But, given that in such a litany of unconventional characters the unconventional becomes the convention, the book is long enough and need detain us no longer. It has made its point and entertained without overstaying its welcome.
The Church of England is to be admired for the liberalism that allowed many of these true stories, that would furnish any Blackadder plot to satisfaction, and several are from not that long ago. It is due to such tolerance that the Reverend Butler-Gallie can both take his stipend and ridicule the organization from which he takes it, some denominations not being quite so open to seeing the funny side either in the past or now. But maybe in his Glossary he has gone too far. He didn't have to try quite so hard to make his book qualify for the category of 'humour' suggested on the inside back cover when a more detached tone could have given the reader more chance to take part, the bare facts of these accounts being good enough on their own.
One also realizes that the esteem in which Cambridge and, especially, Oxford Universities are now held, rightly or wrongly, can't be projected backwards and confer any honour to those that went up before there were any other universities to go to in England. For many that attend or attended those institutions, they were more a version of the Bullingdon Club than places of high academic rigour.   
It is nonetheless an enjoyable stocking-filler, as much as some of the cross-dressing vicars you might find in it could be said to be, and is sure to gather a certain chortling readership in the demographic of readers of The Oldie or listeners to Radio 4, who appear to laugh at anything. Whether the Reverend succeeds in escaping into the orbit of celebrity from his launch pad of curacy remains to be seen but if that's what he wants one can't blame him for trying.
I knew All Gas and Gaiters was a documentary and not a situation comedy all along.