I Loved "1066 and All That"

My sixth grade teacher was a great anglophile, we in the class had Dickens read to us, listened to Gilbert and Sullivan, and perhaps most remarkably for American brats, learned to address adults as "ma'am" and "sir."
He read "1066" to us, and horrid zanies that we were, we laughed, (when we got the jokes. Come to think of it, we laughed when we didn't.)
Anyway, that is the only reason I had a clue what Eccles was writing about here:

1963 and all that (part 1)

With apologies to W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman.

Pope Paul VI, a blessed pope.

A blessed pope.
After summoning the 2nd Vatican Conflict in order to decide whether the Church should be modern or not, Good Pope John found that he was enjoying it so much that he dropped dead (and 51 years later he went to Heaven). The cardigans got together and picked on Cardigan Montini, who changed his name to Pope Paul VI and carried on the Vatican Conflict, after removing all the wounded. In the end, the Conflict ended with lots of new decisions, which were instantly blamed on the Holy Spirit, viz.:
1. All Catholics must stop talking Latin and learn a new language called Vernacular.
2. All priests who faced east must turn round and face west. However, the common people were not allowed to face west.
3. All altars were moved from the end of the church into the middle, so that the priests could hide behind them.
4. Kneeling was forbidden in church, as it was not considered cool.
5. The common people were no longer to obey orders given to them by priests.
6. The Age of Aquarius had dawned and a new Spirit of Vatican II was abroad.
7. Sex and drugs and rock and roll were still sins, but not as bad as they used to be. Indeed there was to be a new prophet of rock and roll, called St Cliff Richard.
After the 2nd Vatican Conflict, all Catholics were naturally very happy, and so they stopped going to church (see Rule 5).

Catholics being very happy.

Being and American, I have to admit, I don't always "get" Mr Eccles, the style of humor.
And of course, it's a bit inside baseball, I often don't know who the British pols and presenters and personalities are, about whom he spins drollery to such great affect.
But when I do  -- well, he's a treasure. A mean-spirited treasure, but a treasure.