Hello my flock. Tomorrow is a very important date in the church calendar so please join me at Christ’s home and let us fill the pews with praise and food smells. For the day is of course Palm Sunday (and coincidentally the Bishop’s birthday). On this wonderful Sunday we celebrate the biblical story of when our Lord rode into town astride a frail donkey and just before cooking his disciples a light lunch invented the ultra-versatile palm oil. He’d decided on a snacky, buffet lunch as the Bible tells us he had plans to host a large supper that night and didn’t want to spoil the appetites of his 12 best mates. Inventing the oil was soon recognised to be a miracle, for it changed how Christian’s cooked fried food forever and became an active ingredient in everything from toothpaste to laxatives. So the Church family has for centuries given praise for it on the last Sunday before Easter. And just like our Lord and his chums we eat biblical fried foods off the floor together, such as bacon, black-pudding and eggs, cooked in the wonderful life-enhancing oil. Tomorrow church warden Noddy Holder will be on cooking duty so bring your foods early to be cooked (and bring plenty of ketchup as we always run out). The service will start at 12.10pm to give me time to listen to the Archers omnibus and must finish by 2.15pm, as I have to rush off to the Bishop’s house as he’s hosting one of his famed debauched fancy-dress parties. So see you tomorrow clutching your foodstuffs. God Bless You all. Cyril Knutsford, Vicar, Beckworth St Faiths

(Above) Palm Oil, invented 2016 years ago in Jerusalem, or somewhere like that