Skip to main content.
« Previous entry: Bill Watterson | Main page | Next entry: Diamond Geezer is analysing us »

November 7th, 2005

If females were given mitres

I found this quote whilst leafing through a copy of the Church of England Newspaper (bought only for research purposes):

“Forward in Faith has repeatedly made it clear that the only safeguards it would accept as adequate would be the creation of a third province if females were given mitres.”

I’ve been having a think about the sort of safeguards that might be required for the use of mitres by anyone, male or female. First of all we need to do a bit of a risk assessment. I suppose all of the following are technically possible:

To be honest it seemed to me that most of these are unlikely. But to be sure I did a Google search for ‘Mitre Accident‘, and sure enough such a thing is virtually unheard-of.

I don’t think that a third province will really help anything. At the very most a special roped-off area for Bishops at one end of the church, but nothing more.

16 Comments »



Share this on Facebook:

If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy these (possibly) related articles:

If you liked this post why not send it to someone else by e-mail? Click here to do so.

This is a single post on the Cartoon Blog by Dave posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 2:54 pm. Click here to read all of the latest posts. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Other things technologically advanced people may like to do: trackback from another site, follow responses via the comments feed, bookmark on del.icio.us or digg.

16 Responses to “If females were given mitres”


  1. lou says:

    Lol, thank you Dave, I really needed that :)

    November 7th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
  2. Neil says:

    How about “We are assured that “There are no Mitre dangers,- only obstacles”

    Phew.

    November 7th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
  3. Neil says:

    And how about blowing the code while we are at it? well, you get the idea.

    November 7th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
  4. Sarah H says:

    So if you gave me a mitre these bigotted whatsits might go away…???

    Another merchandising idea there methinks!!!

    November 7th, 2005 at 7:12 pm
  5. Tiffer says:

    Mitre we be taking this all too seriously….

    (someone had to do it)

    November 8th, 2005 at 12:43 pm
  6. Dave Faulkner says:

    Have the health and safety people said anything about this?

    November 8th, 2005 at 1:33 pm
  7. Serena says:

    Dave, that’s classic.

    I wonder – would girls not be safer with mitres, being generally shorter than men and therefore less likely to bump into low-hanging bits of church?

    November 8th, 2005 at 1:37 pm
  8. si smith says:

    …also, lady-bishops could sculpt their hair into the classic ‘beehive’ style, which would lend extra stability to the mitre, making it a much more sturdy proposition and greatly lessening the likelihood of slippage…

    November 8th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
  9. Dave says:

    There’s a lot of sense being talked here.

    I’m not sure about the beehive style Si. A sturdier mitre might be more likely to cause damage to the low hanging bits of church Serena mentions.

    Of course we don’t know that male bishops aren’t taking measures to steady their mitres, such as gelling their combovers upwards into a point.

    I’m thinking (and this might tie in with Sarah’s merchandising point) that mitres with a loose-fitting but secure elastic strap under the chin might be the way to go.

    November 8th, 2005 at 2:46 pm
  10. si smith says:

    re sturdier mitres dave – maybe car designers should be brought in to engineer them with those sort of crumpling properties that car bonnets have to absorb the impact of a collision… that’s what i’m envisaging anyway.

    [actually, maybe i should think less about this, and go do some work instead...]

    November 8th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
  11. Hannah says:

    Might there be any mileage in developing the “bonnet mitre”? This would negate the danger of accidents occurring as a result of mitres falling off. Not sure why this is more likely to happen if the mitre is being worn by a woman… Perhaps F in F could tell us?

    November 9th, 2005 at 1:05 pm
  12. Caroline says:

    Hmm, I think you’re missing a key point

    by and large it’s when they’re not wearing their mitres that Bishops seem to be at their most dangerous!

    and, what’s more

    how could us poor, frail things handlle that big hook thingy without damaging the whole fabric of the church?

    November 9th, 2005 at 7:09 pm
  13. Tim Worstall says:

    Britblog Roundup # 39

    Something of a bumper crop for this week’s Britblog Roundup! As ever you can make your nominations for next week’s by emailing the URL to britblog AT gmail DOT com. Best posts from British and Irish blogs please, those things

    November 13th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
  14. Graham says:

    Might a mitre not be useful to hid a camera in and make it possible for a reality type TV show like ‘Church Cadets’ where we make people believe they have been rapture but really they are in a garden shed at the top of Ben Nevis?
    Could be good advertising eh?

    December 14th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
  15. john Lewis says:

    Most of you seem to miss the point. There have been no virtual accidents with male bishops and mites, just as there will be no virtual accidents with female bishops and mitres. The reason is that the over-riding condition for becoming a bishop is that have a pointy head. The Church has perfected this type of person over the last 2000 years!

    January 11th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
  16. Mark says:

    My favourite thing is that you are now number 1 on google for “mitre accidents”. It’s actually kind of ironic.

    (Or is it, I have no idea what the correct usage of “ironic” is.)

    March 13th, 2006 at 9:41 pm