Buckfast

We usually visit Buckfast Abbey at least once a year, most recently last September and noticed at reference 1.

At that time I mentioned wondering about where the Holy Fathers got the money to build all these fine new churches and this snip from the TLS (for which I am grateful to BH) provides some of the answer - a sort of tax on the drunks and winos of Glasgow. I had no idea that the tonic wine was such a big business - the tune of around £9m sales a year. And to think that we occasionally give the stuff as presents.

Perhaps said drunks and winos are mainly Catholics and they feel better about getting their fix from an Abbey, rather than from cheap sherry, which might come from anywhere and be made by anyone, even, God forbid, Protestants.

Reference 1: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/canopy.html.