I read in this morning's FT of a chap who seems to be a very big cheese in the world of corporate tax (avoidance) and who also seems to be a Church of England priest working out of St. Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square. Although, to be fair, not as priest in charge, that is to say Vicar, of what used to be one of the best paid livings in the land. Nor is he listed among the clergy of that establishment on their web site. Nevertheless, it strikes me as a very odd combination - until you remember that his archbishop used to be an oil executive. Terminal scrapings of the barrel by a church that has descended in the course of my lifetime from being one of the pillars of state to being custodian of a large number of old buildings, mostly rather run-down.
A church which also seems to attract second career priests from the worlds of defence and security. Not to mention large numbers of women. Whereas in the church of Barchester and Trollope, while priests might have been a bit worldly, a bit fond of the good things of life, they did not stoop to trade or otherwise working for their living. Beyond decent callings like the study of ancient Semitic languages or of old English plain-chant. Hunting foxes on horses or playing cards for money not quite the thing.
The non-runner is the spleen, rate in French. An organ which I believe can be removed, perhaps in the aftermath of a car crash, with causing any problems, at least in the short term. And which is associated in England with anger, as in 'he vented his spleen on his cat' or 'he vented his spleen on his assistant' - while in France it seems to be associated with laughter. Non-runner in the sense that checking any of this up is left for another day. Beyond turning up reference 1.
Reference 1: https://www.linguee.com/english-french/translation/spleen.html.
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