Morto un papa, se ne fa un altro

My idle thoughts?

1. I was writing something else, something remotely personal, but that will just have to wait til tomorrow.

2. In Joseph Ratzinger, or Pope Benedict XVI as he'll be known, the cardinals seem to have gone down the route of the hard bastard. So don't expect any hippy liberal tree-hugging out of Rome any time soon. But he's old, so maybe he won't time to do that much damage.

3. It's also annoying because I was quite confidently proclaiming in the office just the other day, "It won't be Ratzinger. He's too old school." I hereby give notice of my resignation as religious pundit.

4. My dear colleagues, bless them, actually had the audacity to call the live web feed of the Papal chimney "Vaticam". We'd all been using the phrase in the office, but actually to publish it? I love 'em to bits.

That's enough Catholicism. Ed.