PRO-LIFE IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

First, a little brainteaser or two to warm you up. Question: What do the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and Roxy Music have in common?

Next question: Around whose demise would a fact-based film called Death At Pooh Corner rotate?

One More: The new releases by which two artists both feature ventriloquist’s dummies on the cover? And why is this not the only coincidence?

Warning: this column has been contaminated by a virus causing outbreaks of asides.

You know about the absurdist train strike which this country is staging at the moment, presumably to provide our European partners with some comedy relief? The one where most of the trains run anyway and the Government can’t even be bothered to pretend that it gives a toss about signalworkers?

Well, if Mr. Major and his merry bunch of bald bastards think this will be the last nail in the trade union movement’s coffin, it wants to take a look at its one-time bed-mate: the Church of England.

Vicars, fearing redundancies and the loss of those jolly nice vicarages in which they get to live, are contemplating joining the MSF union. A pray-to-rule is going to bring this country to its knees, I don’t think. HELLO MR. VICAR. REAL WORLD CALLING. (And on the seventh day, God created the Trade Union Leaders but demands for a five-day week promptly lead to the Ancient of Days smiting them and taking the rest of the day off).

SPREADING MISERY

Final item on the tea-time news, the “Derbyshire traffic warden who swam 500 miles – in a rented banana!!” slot: “The Clerical Workers’ Collective today repeated threats of all out action unless Government immediately agrees to talks on the ineffability of Divine Will. The dispute, now entering its fifth week, centres on a remark by Mr. Major that ‘God willing’, the Church Privatisation Bill would successfully pass its second reading at the Commons.”

Pan to what, from the distance, appears to be a group of bespectacled penguins waving placards bearing the slogans: “Fiat justitia ruat caelum” and “Facilis descensus Averno”. We hear their protest cry ring out: “Heavens, no, we’re ever so sorry but we really didn’t ought to go, you know.”

Weeks pass. Pensioners go into cold turkey as jumble sales everywhere screech to a blinding halt. Shares plummet in the once-buoyant car boot sale market. Boy scouts roam the streets aimlessly, denied a safe place to dib dib dib. Confused and dazed, choir masters attempt to conduct bemused groups of drunks singing New York, New York. Unblessed corpses roam the streets in a zombie bloodlust frenzy.

Catholic Priests are brought in by the employer, Godtrack, to maintain a skeleton service, providing emergency communion and the like. The Archbishop of Canterbury issues warnings that religious services carried out by staff without the correct training could consign customers to the fiery pits of hell.

This summer, we were warned, there would be a mass invasion of American pro-lifers, intent on spreading misery, guilt, confusion and massive emotional damage. It never happened. Shame.

I wanted to share with them my vision of a world where foetuses can grow in peace, sure of their eventual live arrival in the world, where you get a chance to prove yourself before they kill you; a world where post-natal abortion is appreciated and unquestioningly provided to all who ask.

After all, half the time it’s not until a kid hits puberty that you realise you really don’t like it and it really is messing your life up something rotten.

DESTROYING PASSENGERS

Children are much more hassle outside your body than in it. Think of how much more obedient and respectful our children would become if this simple, logical, legislative change was made.

“Sorry, Tommy, you’re causing me emotional damage. I’m gonna have to abort you.” “OK, OK, I’ll tidy my room.”

Criminality could be nipped in the bud with a simple lethal injection. “Are you sure about this Mrs. Doobrey?” Yes, doctor. She’s stolen a Mars Bar before and I just know she’ll do it again. Besides, she listens to Snoop Doggy Dogg.”

World Vision aside, we could have had a whip-round to charter a plane to fly all the pro-lifers back home together as a gesture of our appreciation of their fight against evil and it could have been one of those planes that goes BANG and falls out of the sky for no detectable reason in an intensively hot flameball destroying all passengers.

But they never came.

(And a voice from above said: “This is your God speaking. Destroying all passengers. Destroying all passengers.”)

Pause.

Doorbell rings.

There are two Jehovah’s Witnesses on my doorstep, brandishing The Watchtower and Awake! magazines. (“That’s what you get for starting your column with coincidences”, says the voice from the disembodied brain.)

Second clue to first question: Ceci n’est pas une indication.

Answer to third question: Former Icicle Works frontman Ian McNabb and equally former Faith No More frontman Chuck Mosley’s band, Cement.

Answer questions one and two, complete the phrase “Everything happens in 23s because . . .” in no more than your own words and I’ll send Cement’s new CD, The Man With Action Hair, to whichever one of you I damn well choose, like it or not.

• “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” and “The descent to hell is easy.”