You go off to give a talk on hedgehog gene expression in teratomas, or something similarly scientific. You put the memory stick in the auditorium display projector, the A/V guy pushes a button, and all of a sudden, the audience gets a brief glimpse of that unholy quantity of squid close-up photography you keep around for personal reasons. Now it’s never happened to me, personally — I’m competent with a computer, and much more careful — but here’s a story of a man who ‘accidentally’ showed the wrong powerpoint presentation.

In this case, the man was a Catholic priest (oooh, now you know exactly what happened next, right?)

And it wasn’t a zoology exercise on display. It was, as they delicately put it, “indecent images of men”.

I’m confused by one thing. On the one hand, they say the flustered priest quickly removed the memory stick and fled the room; on the other, the parents and children present report quite specifically that there were 16 pictures shown. I’m thinking it must have been a particularly vivid montage. Although the parents found it impressively memorable, the priest, Martin McVeigh, said he had no knowledge of it. Hmmm.

I am a little amused by what happened afterwards.

Twenty minutes later he returned, he continued with the meeting and wrapped up by saying that the children get lots of money for their Holy Communion and should consider giving some of it to the church.

That’s so typical of a Catholic priest: first they waggle a pile of penises at your kids, then they ask you to fill their coffers. Those priests better look like Chippendales dancers, or they shouldn’t get a penny.

I haven’t found any reports on how persuasive the audience found the presentation.