It is now 11 years since I left Aberystwyth, and my little apartment half way up a hill overlooking Bae Ceredigion*. But in some ways the mid-Wales coastal town remains the centre of my emotional universe. And I miss it.

So I was delighted today to see a story on the BBC News website about the call of Aberystwyth mayor Sue Jones-Davies to lift the local ban on showing the classic Monty Python film The Life of Brian. If the mayor’s name rings any bells with you, that is because Jones-Davies is an actor who in the Python film played the part of Brian’s girlfriend, the intense revolutionary Judith Iscariot.

I wasn’t aware of the Aberystwyth ordinance, but it seems that in 1979 a group of church ministers got together and bullied the town council into banning the film. I guess it’s hardly surprising given the strength of feeling at the time, what with noted religious leaders such as the becassocked Bishop of Southwark and all-round arse Mervyn Stockwood on the telly complaining about the alleged blasphemy contained in the film. And then there was the excruciating media tart and Catholic convert Malcolm Muggeridge bleating on about how absolutely dreadful the film was from a cultural perspective.

In the late 1970s mid-Wales was still under the grip of presbyterian ayatollahs and their dreary protestant chapels. Nowadays, Aberystwyth is the cultural capital of Welsh-speaking Wales, and is a mercifully heathen, multicultural haven. So yes, it’s about time that Ceredigion Council listened to Jones-Davies – one of Wales’ finest thespians – and overturned the ban on The Life of Brian.

* The picture above was taken from a vantage point on Y Graig Glais just above my Aberystwyth home.