After the meeting of Lincoln Cathedral chapter we were taken on a tour high up in the sky on the walls and under the roof of the south transept.

What a wonderful experience, standing in the scaffolding high above Lincoln and look at the new grotesques and gargoyles which the excellent Cathedral Works Department are carving. There is one of a dragon, another one of a monkey, and one in the likeness of the architect, grinning hugely.

What I think is wonderful about all this painstaking work is that it is 100 feet above the ground and hardly anyone will be able to see it. It is a kind of allegory. The best work is often the most hidden.

Someone has proposed eliminating the prayers we have in the main chamber at the start of every day on the grounds that they take up a whole three minutes of time.

I said:

whatever one’s religious views-or lack thereof-apart from the fact that they are beautiful poetry, what is wrong with meditating on things other than politics for three minutes a day? Anyway, our wonderful Chaplain does them very beautifully.

I went to watch my son play rugby. The air was crisp, the sun bright.

What a delight and a great pleasure to stand in the back line and see one’s son play a game.

I spoke in the debate on the Protection of Freedoms Bill.

I am supporting a campaign by Liberty to amend section five of the Public Order Act to remove the ban against “insulting” as opposed to “threatening” or “abusive” speech, which is having such a chilling and deadening effect against free speech, public demonstrations, and street preachers.

Actually I don’t think we should use “insulting” language. Nobody does. But the problem is my “strong point” is your “insult”.

If there had been a modern Mr. Plod in the Temple when Jesus shoved away the money-changers, He certainly would have been arrested under section 5 of the Public Order Act.