You couldn't make it up. I mean, I suppose I'm a bit of a satirist - for often the best way to get a point across is to try to help people see the funny side.

I liked David Frost's comment years ago on the Homosexual Reform Bill. "I hear they've made homosexuality legal. I'm thinking of leaving the country before they make it compulsory".

But there is a problem. The modern world has gone so barmy that any satire I invent before lunchtime has been overtaken by real events in the afternoon. That is because, in our politically-correct world, facts are weirder than jokes. How else could you explain, for instance, that in some quarters you're not allowed to use the word "niggardly" because it's deemed racially offensive?

The following events happened last week. I was on a London tube train when a man got on with his headphones playing the most appalling techno music at high volume. I asked him to turn it off. He refused, scowled at me and said: "That's racist!" I hadn't even noticed that the man was black - only that he was noisy, rude and an inconsiderate oik.

I was out for my lunchtime run and I was knocked down by a cyclist riding on the pavement. As I got up I shouted: "Kind sir, why don't you ride your bicycle on the road?" - or words to that effect. He got off his bike, turned to me and swore that I was not just a racist but a f****** racist.

That's nothing. Inconsiderate, petulant yobs from the underclass are one thing - but you would expect better behaviour from officials from the Diocese of London, wouldn't you? But, as I discovered last Friday, smart suits do not a gentleman make, nor flowery frocks a lady. This is the story:

We are hoping to install some war memorials commemorating those of our parish who gave their lives in the First and Second World Wars. Our church is a grade one listed building and so we have to get permission from the Diocesan Advisory Committee. Their representatives turned up and one of them objected, saying: "Some of the men named on these memorials were not Christians!"

So what? Are we not grateful if a Jew gives his life for us? Jesus gave his and he was a Jew. The reality is that the Church of England is not a sect for the committed, for those who can jump through the bizarre hoops set by the oily enthusiasts and sub-Christian bureaucrats who run the church these days. In truth, the Church of England is for everyone in England.

That is why and how it was created. After two centuries of strife and civil war, in the middle of the 17th century the rival parties came up with what is famously called The Anglican Settlement. This did not require overt religiosity and mock piety of the sort the modern scribes and Pharisees in today's diocesan bureaucracy possess in spades. It required only that a person go to church three times a year and keep the peace.

Those pretending-religious politically-correct diocesan bureaucrats were as bad as the yob with the earphones and the other yob with the inconsiderate bike - worse, because they ought to know better.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.