Language

It’s interesting to see that the paedophile scare continues with the whole registering and checking up on everyone. A man on the radio yesterday pointed out that he was having to pay the government £64 for a piece of paper telling him he wasn’t a paedophile and why the hell should he. Clearly he had to be checked because as a man he is a potential rapist or paedophile. Or worse! We need to be watched, catalogued and controlled all the time because we are all potential criminals in one way or another. But who would be up for doing that? - Hey, it's New Labour!

I may have mentioned this previously but here are three small ways in which religion has let me down. What I mean is actually three ways in which religious words and phrases have turned out to be, well, very disappointing and generally nothing-ey now I’m an adult.

For example, when I was a kid 'holy water' was something that could dissolve vampires and protect people from possession and all kinds of cool stuff. You should, it would seem, always have a vial (and it would never be a Tupperware cup) on hand for when things get really heavy, supernatural wise. It turns out that Holy Water is actually just water that a priest has talked to, or to be fair, over. A bit like one might while doing the washing up. I suppose it's the ritual that makes the difference. That would be the thing that makes it worth crossing people’s heads with and the rest.

Similarly ‘the last rites’ (which of course are always ‘administered’, no-one talks about a priest ‘muttering’ the last rites which it seems to me would be at least as accurate). Once again, when I was a kid I thought that this was some sort of treat. It was so fantastic and so good that you had to get it once before you die and if you’d never had it a bloke would rush round to your death bed to make sure you didn’t miss out. I could only imagine that this would be like having one’s dying trouser pockets filled with sweets of such unimaginable quality you could die happy just imagining the treat that you were probably not going to get due to your imminent death. I wondered if the ‘last rites’ somehow got taken back if you actually managed to pull through and the shameful priest would have to beg you not to tell. Once again, seems that the last rites are (or is?) a prayer. I’m not a Catholic incidentally and I can’t be arsed to check.

Finally there’s ‘consecrated ground’. Don’t be bad enough to be buried in non-consecrated ground because God won’t tolerate ground that hasn’t had words spoken over it by a vicar. I wish I could consecrate things by talking. Or make them sacred. I guess I’m stuck with ‘defiling’ and ‘polluting’ (like some men do with their bodies so I hear...) Perhaps religion is not for me.

I'm off to 'harvest' some names of teenagers from the internet so I can 'groom' them for something wicked.