Thursday 5 June 2003

"Devil Not in Detail": Synod backs Bromley businessman's claims

The Church of England Synod is backing a junior manager from Gloucestershire who is locked in a theological tustle with his employers over "the willy-nilly use of the phrase 'the devil is in the detail'".

"I was in a meeting about whether we were going to limit the number of available 'convenience breaks' for staff, when some analyst got up and distrubuted some data and graphs, uttering something about the devil being in the detail - at which point I'd had enough" said Clyde McQuarry of Cheltenham. "I've had enough of the willy-nilly use of the phrase 'the devil is in the detail' - it, or rather he - is not!"

"McQuarry was asked to calm down," says his line manager, Paul Article. "I said it's only a figure of speech, but he just started screaming about how the authoritative teaching of the Church on this topic being set forth in the decrees of the 4th Lateran Council, wherein, after saying that God in the beginning had created together two creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is to say the angelic and the earthly, and that the Devil and the other demons were created by God good in their nature but they by themselves have made themselves evil, or something. We've had to caution him - he's appealing against it."

Kelvin Pap of the Church Synod said that "in the absense of any union representation at Mr McQuarry's company, we will be supporting him in his dispute. Besides, it should be a bit of a laugh."

- Rex Phibb -