They always say its a mistake to start an argument about politics or religion; its even less advisable to broach these subjects in a pub, where alcohol takes its toll on the rational side of the brain.
Combine all three and you have a tasty recipe for broken friendships and broken noses.
Yet for 500 years Deritend willingly inflicted this ugly cocktail upon itself. Were presently observing the scene in a schoolroom back in 1842. The benches, normally occupied by obedient youngsters, are now being employed as offensive weapons.
One man has climbed on a chair and is pushing a tankard into the face of another individual, who is shouting from the window-ledge.
All this began as a discussion about disestablishmentarianism.
To explain what is happening here we need to go back to the 14th century. At that date Deritend and Bordesley were part of the ancient parish of Aston, a vast tract of land stretching from the borders of Sutton Coldfield to the banks of the River Rea.
For Deritenders proper religious observance meant a four-mile trudge across the fields to the church of St Peter & Paul.
This is todays equivalent of walking from town to watch the Villa, for the football ground is next door to the church.
Certainly it was an awfully long way to carry a child to baptism or a body to burial, and there were strong theological reasons to find an alternative. A child who died before Christening would be lost forever.
The building of a chapel of ease at Deritend was meant to address this problem.
Parishioners were still required to attend the mother church at Easter, Christmas and on a handful of other saints days, but at other times - and especially when the river was in flood - they could pop across the road to their very own chapel.
St Johns, Deritend, stood on the south side of the road, on a site now occupied by an anonymous warehouse and the Irish Centre.
But this was not the sum total of the agreements made in 1381. The householders of Deritend and Bordesley were also permitted to elect their own chaplain, rather than having him imposed by the bishop.
This was a highly unusual and remarkably democratic arrangement for the Middle Ages.
The women of Great Britain might have to wait until the 20th century before the franchise was opened to them, but the women of Deritend (or at least the ones who were householders) had already been exercising their right to vote for 450 years by then.
No doubt in the earliest days these elections were quiet and restrained affairs, no more heated than a parish meeting.
There was, after all, little to choose between this orthodox priest and that, other than the length of his chasuble or the cut of his tonsure. But by the 18th century there was a lot more to get ecclesiastically heated about.
Nor was this the only reason to get excited about the Deritend election. The chapel of St John was rather well endowed with lands, and by the 1780s the job of running it was said to be worth a cool £80 per annum and rising. As a result there was never a shortage of applicants for this lucrative position.
Another ingredient in this explosive cocktail was the fact that the Deritend ballot (like all other elections) was not secret. Ones neighbour had the perfect right, indeed the obligation, to find out how you had voted, and what was true for next door was even more true for the candidates. If he had bribed you to vote for him, he had a reasonable entitlement to know that his money had been well-spent. Nor were there any ground rules laid down in 1381 as to the form or conduct of the ballot.
This is the historical explanation, if not the excuse, for what is currently happening in the Deritend schoolroom. The rest of the explanation lies in the half dozen empty barrels of ale in the corner of the room. The free supply of food and drink was always the most effective form of electoral inducement in Deritend.
The two candidates in 1842, incidentally, are the Rev Thomas Storer and the Rev Bramwell Smith. Their battle for supremacy, and the right subsequently to lecture their parishioners on the evils of drink, rests on their ability to provide enough enter-tainment for the three days of the election.
No wonder the Deritend election was locally known as the flood.
Every hour the state of the parties is announced, which only adds to the frenzy of the occasion, while two bellmen - one for each candidate - roam the streets, ringing as if it were Judgement Day.
Clearly this form of election was far too much fun to be allowed to continue indefinitely, but putting a stop to it was easier said than done. So watertight and time-honoured was the original agreement that neither the Court of Chancery nor the Charity Commissioners could overturn it.
Instead it took a private Act of Parliament in 1890 to transfer the patronage of the chapel away from the parishioners and into the hands of the bishop, the vicar of Aston and three trustees.
Once this had taken effect, religion in Deritend was never as exciting again.
