Ruth Gledhill - Times Online - WBLG

Skating on thick stone: Malmesbury Abbey to be skate park again

 After this year's event was such a success, the Rev Neill Archer, Vicar of Malmesbury, has been granted permission to turn his twelfth century abbey into a skate park again next year, the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard is reporting today. Read also the Western Daily press and the abbey's own website for more details of what happened on the day.

Ata mefutar!

As we report, the Jewish Chronicle has today published its list of the top 100 people most influential on the Jewish Community. The omission of The Apprentice's Alan Sugar is surprising. But even more remarkable is the omission of Chelsea's Avram Grant, especially given Chelsea's deserved and amazing victory over Man United the other day. Oh how the Man U supporters in our house wept that night. How we secret Chelsea fans gloated. (You have to be a bit secretive about it if you dare to support Chelsea in the little enclave of liberalism where we live, even though it is technically our 'local'.) Read the list in full on the JC website here, here and here.

Vatican doesn't buy football club

My new Facebook friend Ronnie Convery has drawn my attention to an amusing tale that I wanted to share with all of you. In a declaration released yesterday afternoon, according to VIS, Holy See Press Office Director Father Federico Lombardi S.J. denied recent reports that the Vatican or the Italian Episcopal Conference have bought the Italian football team Ancona, which plays in the third division. (Update: Matthew Syed has covered it in our Thunderer column in today's Times, Thursday. And the Pope actually had an audience with the club, as the International Herald Tribune reports.)

Eastmas 'Cons of Praise'

This is the Bishop of Lichfield, the Right Rev Jonathan Gledhill, who as we report has lifted the lid on the "truth" behind the BBC religion flagship Songs of Praise. The funny thing in writing this story was that his apparent criticisms about the Advent and Easter Day Songs of Praise being shot on two consecutive days in November came in a speech in which he was actually criticising media distortion and misrepresentation. He raised an exceedingly nice petard for us to do a hoist with there!

Faithful Cities - Cricket in Kew

This is, I am afraid, a shameless plug for my own parish, St Anne's in Kew, which is organising a celebrity cricket match on the coming Bank Holiday Monday to raise funds for its tercentenary restoration appeal and for React, a charity that helps terminally-ill children and their families. Vicar Fr Nigel Worn is pictured here with the actress Samantha Bond, who will open the tournament. She is currently starring in Michael Frayn's comedy Donkey's Years in the West End. One of the four adult teams will be made up of staff and friends of the Royal Botanical Gardens next door, led by RBG director Sir Peter Crane. (Note to Kew and Richmond residents: here's your chance to have a 'word' with him about Heathrow...the consultation on plans to end runway alternation has been delayed until autumn.)

Tony Banks, ballroom dancer

The death of Tony Banks has left me feeling terribly sad. He was the most wonderful man, a rarity in politics, enormous fun and a champion of enjoyment with a serious, socialist undercurrent to everything. Along with all the other tributes pouring in from around the world today, I felt moved to make my own here. I got to know him just a little in 1998, when he was Sports Minister and when the International Dance Sport Federation appeared to be heading for success in its campaign to put dance sport on the Olympic programme. (Interestingly, former IOC president Juan Samaranch has just agreed to become the federation's roving ambassador.) At the time, as a dance competitor, I was writing about the sport for the paper and Tony Banks gamely agreed to pose for a photo to accompany a story.