The chaplaincy service - which volunteers claim provides a "lifeline" for some congregants - marks the first scheme of its kind and its pioneers hope that it will be rolled out across the Church of England's 41 other dioceses.

It also comes at a time when divisions within the Anglican church about how it deals with LGBT issues have come to a head.

Pagans were fond of predicting the apocalypse and so are we -- despite the fact that we were warned not to: "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man" (Mark 13:32). Oh but that's what you think! The Church's hierarchy is in thrall to Climate Change. All the bishops and the Synod preach the new pagan apocalypse of global warming. As befits pagans, ancient or modern, there is a new god. Only in this case a new goddess in the form of the child-savant Greta Thunberg. False gods tell lies.

It amounts to little less than a recalibration of our existence. Things we have taken for granted all our lives -- ease of movement and of assembly, freedom from pestilence, indeed the relative salubrity of life itself -- are threatened. Apart from the profound consequence that many will die before what was expected to be their time, we shall be forced back on resources of character we did not know we had, and made to change patterns of behaviour for the common good.

"Through the generousity of a number of chaps I know who have access to various trusts, I was able to secure the money to supply Renew with a number of white flags," Bishop Rod explains, "But not only that, when I mentioned my plan to Justin over our morning kippers, he managed to secure an extra £2k to make sure that the flags were durable enough to last through the coming 12 months.