Father Oates returns to Edinburgh this weekend after some important church duties last week involving a former priest of the parish and a naive choirboy. All cleared up now of course.
He’ll be back in his booth to take confession from the people of Edinburgh, offering them words of wisdom and penance in the form of Holy Wine.
Here’s a few confessions from the dancefloor from our first week in Scotland. If this inspires you to unburden yourself of guilty thoughts and indeed pleasures, then come down to Assembly@Princes Street Gardens, this weekend, Thursday – Sunday and we can help heal the pain. 11.30pm start and tickets are right here.
Father Oates writes:
Rolf Harris: a source of family strife
A lady came to my booth, to explain a recent problem with her Mother involving a trip to Glastonbury. Her mother was very excited about the weekend and more importantly about seeing Rolf Harris. In the way down in the car,all that was played upon their stereo was Rolf Harris. When they got to the site, again Rolf resumed his role as soundtrack to the weekend as it was played it non stop in the tent. If that wasn’t enough then they went to see him on stage. The lady was understandably somewhat on her nerves at this point, understandably as there really is so much Rolf a person can take and when he played ‘Two Little Boys’ the daughter, my confessor, inexplicably burst into tears and cried all the way through the song. She continued to cry through ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport’ sung to the tune of the American National Anthem and only stopped when Rolf launched into ‘Watlzing Matilda’. It wasn’t quite the weekend she’d planned.
Victim of a cruel bike-and-run?
Another woman came to me to confess to an incident of murder. Whilst in Tahiti, she had accidentally run over a dog on her bicycle. Frightened to stop she cycled off and has felt terribly guilty ever since about it. The hit and run of a dog on a bike. Shame on her. But she has done the right thing in coming clean.
Jason Byrne: Hair hatred
Some of the staff at Assembly are sinners and a few came to me confessing to murderous thoughts about Festival comedians, Jason Byrne was one of them and when I asked one of the women why she wanted to murder him, she said that it was his hair. She had a genuine phobia/hatred of his ‘greasy, tangled, red/blonde hair’. One must learn to overlook the hair and embrace the person. Man cannot share this earth harmoniously if we hold prejudices against the way one looks.
Miley Cyrus: popular confession in Edinburgh
I had a lot of Miley Cyrus musical appreciation which I’ve never had in our regular parish of KOKO and I found worrying. Although I don’t really know her music, I think the image she presents to the young girls of this world is troublesome.
Watermelon: not to be used as a fake pregnancy prop
A group of confessors came to own up to stealing a watermelon from Morrisons. It seemed to be quite an involved group effort but culminated in one of the women putting it up her jumper and pretending to be pregnant. The miracle of birth should not be disgraced by the shameful act of stealing. I instructed them to three Hail Mary’s and a volunteer shift a Morrisons for the night.
Duncan James: Father Oates struggles to show love to him
A female confessor had a thing about Duncan from Blue. Amorous thoughts and general illicit feelings. I found it very difficult to give a balanced, rational response as he is one of the few people that I have a totally irrational phobia/hatred of. I know one shouldn’t hold such grudges, more so as a man of the cloth, but despite my lecturing of the Assembly staff on seeing the inner beauty of a person beyond the hair, I sadly cannot bring myself to do this here. It’s less about his hair (although his hair is disgusting) but more his face and the ridiculously pathetic way he moves. I will be visiting the bishop to see how I can resolve this quandary and see Duncan for the good man he must be.
I look forward to welcoming you to my booth this weekend and saving the people of Edinburgh from sin once more.
