THE Yorkshire marathon furnished us with the last caption-competition photo. Readers took pleasure in interpreting what the Archbishop of York, Dr Sentamu, was up to.
“Testing the new Peace for youth communion services” (Eric Lishman); ”After Strictly comes Country Dancing?” (Chris Coupe); ”As long as he held his hands up, they were winning; so Aaron and Hur were ready and waiting should the Archbishop get tired” (Andrew Greenhough); ”Up high! Down low! Oops . . . too slow!” (Che Seabourne); and ”Clergy selection was certainly different in the York diocese” (Vicky Lundberg).
Other suggestions: “It’s a tag race, Archbishop: we touch, and off you go” (John Saxbee); “Someone tell him it’s not a relay” (Tom Page); and “His failure to hand on the crosier correctly lost them the relay race” (Edward Mynors).
Most readers, though, settled on the high-five: “Is that one of your high fives-a-day, Archbishop?” (John Radford); “He was about to regret high-fiving someone who plays African drums” (Chris Coupe); and Richard Barnes burst into song: “Lift high the five, the love of Christ proclaim, till every sole endure half-marathon pain”.
Then the entries started to get a bit weird: “Through 15 miles — hit ‘the wall’ — started hallucinating — hi-fived a purple shepherd — booked into rehab” (John Saxbee); “The Anglican equivalent greeting to ‘Live long and prosper’?” (Chris Coupe); ”The Archbishop was unaware that the four-finger open palm was the recognition sign of the Yorkshire Liberation Army” (Ray Morris); and “Stop, son. Don’t go in there. It’s full of archdeacons” (Eric Lishman).
More generally: “It must be Palm Sunday” (John Saxbee); “Archbishop tries out new liturgy for welcoming Transpennine people” (Richard Barnes); “As there were so many candidates, the Archbishop was using a run-through confirmation service” (Brian Stevenson); ”The new applicant was relieved to have fulfilled all the requirements for joining the new
York Minster bell-ringers team” (Richard Hough); “The Archbishop had not quite got the hang of arm-wrestling yet” (Stephen Disley); and ”The ‘living water’ station was lovely, but not immediately helpful” (Jeremy Fletcher).
A prize of Fairtrade chocolate, courtesy of Divine (divinechocolate.com) goes to the winner.
