To relieve the sombre mood in the wake of the Pope's death at the weekend I thought I'd recount my favourite Pope joke, which is amazingly neither rude nor blasphemous . Stop reading if you've heard it before.

The story begins with the Pope flying into Britain for a bit of ecumenical schmoozing with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Unfortunately for his Holiness, a stickler for punctuality, the flight is delayed so he has scarcely a few moments for a bit of perfunctory tarmac-kissing before rushing through immigration to meet his driver.

Without delay he gets in the back of the car and tells the driver to put his foot down. To the Pontiff's dismay, however, the driver settles into the slow lane on the motorway, going no more than 30mph.

"What in the Lord's name are you doing?", asks his Holiness."My Popemobile goes faster than this. Get a move on!"

The driver speeds up to 40mph but refuses to go any faster. Suddenly the Pope shouts out, "That's it! You've exhausted the patience of a future saint. Pull over and I'll drive."

No sooner has the driver stopped at the side of the road than the Pope bundles him into the back of the car and settles himself into the driving seat. The car screeches off in a puff of dust and is soon doing over 100mph in the outside lane.

All is going well until the Pontiff notices the blue lights of a police car in his rear view mirror. With a few words of choice Latin he pulls over to the side of the road. As the policeman walks up to the vehicle the Pope rolls down the window, puts on his best Papal smile and says to the copper, "Do you know who I am?"

The policeman blushes slightly and says, "Wait there one moment, Sir. I'll be right back".

Returning rather nervously to his vehicle he gets on the radio to his superintendent.

"Sorry to trouble you sir, but I've just pulled over someone for speeding and I need some advice", he says.

"What do you mean? Just book him and send him on his way", answers the superintendent.

"The problem is that he's a very important person and I don't know if I should" replies the officer.

"Well if it's Tony Blair, make sure you throw the book at him!" grumbles the superintendent.

"No," replies the officer. "It's someone even more important than Tony Blair."

"More important than Tony Blair? Don't tell me it's George Bush!"

"No, sir," the officer says. "Even more important than that"

"Come off it!" shouts the superintendent. "Who's more important than George Bush?"

"Well let's put it this way," replies the officer. "Whoever it is, the Pope's working as his chauffeur!"