How a pee could save millions!

This is weird but true!

Before the days of S4C, Eric Dafydd, my cousin in law worked for the BBC and on a couple of occasions, when I was in Cardiff, I went to the BBC Club with him for a pint.

In early August 1978, I had had a few pints in the club and went to relive myself; when a member of the news team, who was standing by my side, said Sad about the Pope isn't it? I hadn't heard the news, but Pope Paul VI had died.

A couple of weeks later I was in Cardiff again. I went to the BBC Club toilet again, and the very same reporter peed next to me and said Sad about the Pope isn't it? JP I had died – Spooky!

Because Eric left the BBC on the establishment of S4C I never went to the BBC club again until I was asked to take part in a programme for the Beeb in 2005.

I was having a pee, when a member of the news team who was standing by my side said Sad about the Pope isn't it? I hadn't heard the news, but John Paul II had died!!

Valleys Mam, Welsh Agenda and Aeron Jones object to the state visit of the Pope, because of its cost to the public purse.

They have an easy way of stopping it! Put some pints in for me behind the bar of the BBC club Llandaf. If they put enough pints in to make me pee - the visit might have a major problem!

Is the Pope launching a helpline a joke?

Thorough the day I have heard a number of reports about the gaff by Home Office staff regarding the Pope's visit to the UK. Almost every news service lists the jocular and insulting ideas that were suggested in the document:

Benedictine Condoms Ha! Ha!
Blessing a gay marriage Ho! Ho!
Opening an abortion clinic Ha bloody Ho!

I can see the piss take in these suggestions, I can see why Catholics are upset and I can see why some see the Vatican and the UK Government's reactions to them as rather sour faced.

But there is one thing in the list that I honestly believe is not a joke or a leg pull:

That the Pope should open a helpline for children abused by Catholic Priests and others in Church authority.

I would suggest that the person who threw this idea into the brainstorming event was serious, possibly even an adherent of Roman Catholicism.

As a non Catholic Christian preacher who has had to deal with totally unjustified tarred with the same brush bollocks over the last few months, I think that The Pope opening a helpline, or encouraging abused parishioners of all denominations to contact ChildLine 0800 1111 would be a very good idea!