Download the audio version of this dollop here
Our toilet broke yesterday. I’ve a feeling that God or mother nature is sending me a warning about my choice of toilet paper. Fortunately though, after a bit of prodding about in the Cistern the problem was fixed. I’m really not sure what God/mother nature expects me to do. I’ve bought the planet destroying toilet paper now, so surely I might as well use it. Surely you should be focusing your wrath on the people who produce the paper, rather than one individual consumer. But if you think I should throw the remainder of the toilet paper in the bin rather than use it then that’s what I’ll do, but you could at least tell me in a more civilised way like leaving a comment on my blog, rather than breaking our toilet. But I suppose that would be too obvious and sensible for God, who’s got to live up to his reputation of working in mysterious ways, although I think leaving a comment on a folk singers blog is pretty weird and mysterious too.
Our shower has started leaking through the roof a bit as well, and I’m a little worried now that this blog post will scupper our abilities to claim on the insurance should anything go wrong. After all, this blog post could be seen as an admission that the problems occurred due to an act of God, who is smiting me through the medium of plumbing problems due to my reckless toilet paper consumption.
What a strange term that is: act of God. I’d love to hear the phone conversation between Richard Dawkins and his insurance company after his house has been flooded.
“I’m sorry Mr Dawkins, I’m afraid we won’t be paying out.”
“You what? What do you mean you won’t be paying out? But this is ridiculous!”
“If you’d just calm down Mr Dawkins. I’m trying to explain …”
“Calm down?! Calm down?! Listen, I pay the premium rate? I am fully covered. I’m covered for everything! So what do you mean you can’t pay out? What possible reason …
“Please MR Dawkins, calm down and I’ll … Oh, hang on, Mr Dawkins, as in … Oh dear, I’m afraid you’re not going to like this sir.”
“What?”
“You’re really not going to like this. I’m afraid we can’t pay out because … There’s no easy way of telling you this but …”
“What? Come on you insufferable buffoon, spit it out man! What is it?!”
“Well … the thing is Mr dawkins … it was .. er … it was … oh, now … this is somewhat ironic you might say.”
“What the bloody hell are you jabbering on about. Just get on with it!”
“It was … an, act, of, God. It was an act of God Mr Dawkins. Mr dawkins, Mr Dawkins? Mr Dawkins? Are you OK?””
I am also a non-believer, but I haven’t approached my non-belief in God with anywhere near the vociferousness that dawkins has. I’d be damned to hell making no fuss if God would grant me just one wish before I go, which would be to see the moment that Dawkins discovers that he was wrong all this time and that there was a God after all, who is standing over him on the day of judgement laughing uncontrolably, except obviously he would technically be able to control the laughter because he’s all-powerful, but there’s no need to be pedantic.
“Oh we’ve been so looking forward to this moment, haven’t we Peter?”
“How many times Jesus, it’s Simon.”
“Whatever Peter. And how many times Peter? It’s Yeshua. My dad and I had so much fun watching you on the phone to that insurance company Richard. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Well technically it would be impossible for my dad to have missed it, given that he’s omnipresent, although, at the same time I suppose it would be possible for him to have missed it in spite of his omnipresence because he’s all-powerful, so if he’d have wanted to have missed it then he must have the power to do so. Oh I don’t know, it’s all very confusing this omnipotence omnipresence malarkey. My dad’s tried to explain it to me thousands of times, and I still don’t get it. To be honest, I’m not even sure he really gets it, although, I suppose he must because he’s all-knowing. Anyway, the point is that we all exist Richard. Me, my dad, AKA God, my mother, the virgin Mary, who’s still a virgin after all these years, although Jeremy Kyle tried to do a lie detector and DNA test when he got to the Pearly Gates. Needless to say we damned him to hell. I bet you feel like a bit of a dick now don’t you. That’s a joke Richard because Dick is short for Richard. Oh yes, Yeshua has a sense of humour you know. I think I get it from my dad. He loves a good joke. Well, take the old testament, absolutely hilarious. We still have a good laugh at the poor sods down there trying to make sense of it, although some people do spoil the joke slightly by killing people because of it.”
“But … but … but … How was I to know? Believing in you and your dad would have been completely irrational?”
“Irrational? It’s not like we didn’t leave clues for you Richard. Remember that slice of toast?”
“The what?”
“That slice of toast in February 2011? We manifested an impression of my mother, the virgin Mary in the bread. You took one look at it, made some snide comment about it being a coincidence and ate it. We don’t leave those toast clues for everyone you know Richard. Some people don’t get any visions in their toast, yet they still believe. Happy are those that have not seen the face of a virgin in their breakfast, yet still believe?”
Although I don’t believe in God, to be fair he has had some pretty nifty ideas, such as his philosophy on work, which I could have done with taking on board before I launched into this 365 consecutive days of blogging nonsense. Even God felt he needed a day off once a week. What hubris overcame me to think that I could go one better than God and keep going for seven days solid without rest. If God needs a rest, surely I should factor in a day of rest too. You may argue that god created an entire planet in six days, whereas I have merely done six days of blogging, and to compare those two things in the same light is utterly ridiculous. But let me say this to you: have you ever done six consecutive daily blog posts? Exactly, so shut up. Oh you do rile me sometimes. In fact, I’ve now done seven days of consecutive blog posts, and I’ll be back tomorrow for Dollop eight, providing God hasn’t smited me with a death-inducing plumbing disaster.
My brother has released a couple of tracks on his Bandcamp page. We had fun over Christmas working on parts of it together. If you fancy, take a listen here.
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