Apologies to Ros Clarke.

One of the problems of submitting a comment on somoeone's 'blog' is that one cannot always inject the right tone into what is written - especially if the comment is a questioning one.

The thing is I realise that I was coming across as boorish and I want to apologise for any offence I might have caused. On a previous occasion we were, coincidentally, on-line at the same moment; so the exchange we had occurred in real-time; in other circumstances the conversational theology we were having might have passed off without all the defensiveness. But that is no excuse, I was being tetchy and immature and I apologise.