Open Writing

.......... And God spoke unto Adam and He said, "Why does it take you so
long to come to the phone?"

Adam said: "Have you seen the size of this garden? Also I wish you would
have a word with that angel you sent with a blazing sword. I've got scorch
marks on the dahlias and the heat is bringing on the chrysanths too
early..."

God said: "The angel is Security and outside my remit. But there has
obviously been a mistake. He shouldn't be there till apple picking... "

"I wanted Dobermans,” He continued, “but Finance estimate an overall
saving with flames that is very impressive. It's something they picked up
from the Competition.

“We are working on garden staffing levels. Research and Development
were going to let you invent the plough, then we planned electricity,
which I personally am very excited about and cannot wait to
create Faraday."

Adam said: "Talk is cheap. When do I get to invent the plough?”

God said: "R and D have come up with this new concept. Run it up the
tree trunk and see if it flaps."

Adam said: "God, sometimes you say things which are a mystery to me..."

God said: "Goes with the territory. But about this R and D idea. It will do
the gardening; it's an entertainment concept and does home nursing.

“R and D are working on a modem called sex which completely does away
with the spare rib method I originally planned. It will need a User Manual.

I'm thinking of calling it the Ten Commandments."

Adam said: "Does this machine have a name?"

God said: "What's in a name, as Shakespeare is going to say. We were
going to call it a slave and then a skivvy but Marketing said names like
that give off the wrong vibes, consumerwise. So what we finally came up
with was Woman. What takes the Woe out of Man - Woman. Neat,eh?
Copywriting and Graphics reckon we could achieve a 98 per cent
penetration of A and AB markets."

Adam said: "I want an assurance from management that this woman
machine will never be programmed to take executive decisions..."

And God spoke and He said: "Thursday already? I have to go. I have two
days' creating before my rest day..."

And He rang off. It was only later when Eve harvested the apples and
there was this Leak from Head Office about relocation that Adam
remembered he had been given no guarantees about negative parity for
the woman machine. And Adam was sore afraid.

Meanwhile, a very cross mass of people, 14 million of them, travelled and
marked up £25 million on credit cards, spent £14,000 a second in
Christmas shopping, tried to see the logic, as they shivered on draughty
platforms or icy trains, of BR's boast it had improved its efficiency by
cutting its services by a quarter. Nor was there much comfort to millions
of land-bound air passengers when the head of BAA refused to take his
efficiency bonus. He should have given his salary back.

I am convinced that we are witnessing the final collapse of Western
Civilisation and not surprised that, according to The Guardian, things can
only get worse.

The report predicts severe disruptions will become common at UK airports,
which will become vulnerable to the changing climate. The Met Office
could not forecast getting wet in a downpour. Britons might have to get
used to power blackouts and disrupted travel plans as the country
struggles to cope with the long-term effects of climate change, a report for
the government has warned. Consumers will have to learn they cannot
expect cheap heating and lighting and to go where or when they want as
floods, rising temperatures and higher sea levels threaten the UK's road,
rail, water and energy networks, it says. If that warning was not sombre
enough in a month when air, rail and road travel has been badly hit by the
weather, mighty storms and changes in wind direction could threaten
some of the country's busiest ports and airports. That would mean the
abandonment of coastal docks and increasing pressure for the building of
new runways throughout southern Britain.

The transport system has failed; education is a bad joke; the lethal police
dismisseth us; parliament is a nest of quarrelsome backbiters and thieves.

We fight unnecessary wars; we give millions to other countries whilst
denying our own needy all but the necessities of life; we cannot afford to
offer our talented young free education. Our culture is an embarrassment:
the music has no essence, the paintings are a mockery, poetry is
copywriting. It is the bankers not the crooks who wear the black masks,
symptoms of a social structure that has collapsed.

What is it we are celebrating between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Night?

Only twelve per cent of Britons practise Christianity. Christ's Mass? By any
reliable computation the man we call Christ was born in September, 4 A.D.

Tax collection in an agrarian society in the darkest days of winter when
nothing grows would have been counter productive. A wise teacher has
been obscured by conjuring tricks and tacky illusions.

There is no room for gods in my life. They are phantasmagorias created by
frightened people to defend themselves in the dark which surrounds them.

We are our own immortality, there is no death, life is endless. If Christ
were to return no doubt he would be accompanied by hobbits and
schoolboys with magical powers.

I do not do reverence but I am very strong on awe. I am gripped by it at
the thought of the flower crouched in a tiny seed and the magic of
creation. According to Freud, Moses was the exiled priest of a disgraced
Pharaoh who tried to make the Egyptians abandon their many gods.

Heeding his teaching, the Israelis abandoned Jahveh and Baal and
worshipped only the sun, the creative spirit made manifest.

Perversely I believe in Christmas as a precious thing. But it is Christmas
Past when I wore clean pyjamas, still warm from the iron, on Christmas
Eve and woke on Christmas morning to feel a weight on my feet of a
pillowcase filled with toys. It is the memory of the Christmas when I crept
downstairs to find my father surrounded by my toys, saying tipsily:

”Father Christmas was too drunk to climb the stairs”; of Christmas dinner
when he was flown with wine and impertinence.

**

Do visit Ian's vastly entertaining and provocative Web site

http://skidmoresisland.blogspot.com/