More Me, Vicar

Here is a painting of a woman with her legs 'accidently' on display as a vicar enters the room. I can’t think I’ve seen such an odd subject before but painting bowls of apples would bore me.

Where did this come from? I buy two magazines a week for my neighbour Mrs Beckett - Woman and Woman’s Weekly. Before I shove them in her letterbox I read the problem pages. I’ve read some odd problems over the years: (1) my husband insists and wearing a Darth Vader mask every evening and is ruining his voice by trying to talk like him and (2) I broke wind violently at a job interview and got the job but I now cannot start as I’m embarrassed (3) if I visit a zoo I just know I’ll jump in the tiger enclosure as I'm so miserable (4) I set my alarm so I'm awake at mid-night or something terrible will happen (5) I love my ex-boyfriend so much I pretend to be his maid when he’s entertaining his new girlfriend and (6) I fell in love with my mother-in-law while my wife was on a life-support machine. I wish they were all as interesting as these.

I remember one letter in which a woman was obsessed with the vicar at the church she attended. Being married with a child didn’t stop her efforts to ensnare him. She had moved to a house on the same lane as the church, bought the church a sit-on lawnmower, befriended the vicar’s sister to learn more and booked a coach holiday the vicar was booked on. She couldn't get him out of her mind. She’d “found” his missing briefcase and, in a ruse, forced him to visit her home to collect it. When he called round she just happened to be painting her toenails on the coach while wearing summer shorts. She needed help before her marriage became unsalvageable.

I never forgot that letter (nor the one about the man who put a hot tea bag on his manservant to get the flood flowing but scalded his self into the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department) and now it’s manifested itself into this painting. It all went well though most people in a cocaine-induced coma can do better. I'd started it about a year ago, put it in the spare bedroom to dry and then forgotten about it. I wasn’t sure what to call it but “More Tea, Vicar” is a well-known saying and the title for a book of catchphrases by Nigel Rees. In that book the origins of “More Tea, Vicar” comes from trying to cover up an embarrassment.

You could buy this unusual painting for your local vicar to hang on the chimney breast at the vicarage. It would help prevent awkward silences and keep conversation flowing. It will be dry in about six weeks but you can order it now for £22,466.

No whispering please…

Worrying it to death as usual…