I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last weeks regretting jokes about media studies students : given that some rudimentary knowledge of video editing might have come in useful in lockdown. I’m grateful to those who have pointed out, directly or indirectly the amateurishness of my attempts to continue some sort of ministry without personal contact. The lighting, the sound, the framing it’s all a bit rubbish. It’s not suprising; framing was something I thought the Sweeney did to criminals Back In the Day.

And speaking of jokes from Back In the Day, how I used to laugh with my vicar friends about how if one of us was feeling really antisocial we could apply for the job of The Ceefax Vicar (I think that really was a Thing, You Know When) . We’re all Ceefax Vicars now: so what do we have to worry about?

Well thanks to the Internet the things in the background have taken on a whole new importance. Do we celebrate the first British Cabinet meeting by Zoom by having a flag in the background? Does our toddler burst in followed by the wife, commando crawling on the floor? (I was personally disappointed that his next video interview didn’t feature this) Or do we have a bookshelf? Empty? (Labour’s Angela Rayner criticised for that) Or full? (various people, including some clergy criticised) Because if you have an empty bookshelf then, according to some of Twitter, you must be thick. And if you have a full bookshelf then you can’t be “real” or a “man of the people”.

Remember when you got told “don’t judge a book by the cover”, by your Mum? She was absolutely right. If we have to judge people then we should do so by what they say and do, not what’s in the background and I’m sorry for the times I’ve fallen into that trap.

My bookshelf is in the background on my laptop camera view because a few years I moved my desk to stop myself staring out of the window. It says nothing except it’s a place to put my books and it’s not very tidy. Now before we get too much further into Through The Keyhole country I’m off to fix the background on my next Zoom meeting to something exciting…