Category: morthos

Good evening.

Modern Christianity is a vibrant force, filled with edicts, papal bulls and the waffle that comes mostly from the Protestants. Despite claims to the contrary it is mostly a growing religion (but, like many middle-aged gents, is putting on weight in the wrong regions) and, like all things that push the envelope, has its ups and downs. Roman Catholicism, reeling from the discovery that the Pope’s renal system proved to be fallible (Congratulations, Bishop Jamie, on a sentence well parsed) has set out to show that the modern cleric can be cool and calm.

Not just that, but in any hat.

Hats are important; as Pope I have at least four good hats and a collection of sundry headpieces to fill out the rest of the week. Admittedly, most of my hats are of the ‘about town’ variety, with a few that fall into the ‘going out’ category (as well as one that probably fits into the type ‘oppressing the natives and stealing their booty’). Yet it is hard to compete with the Cardinals in the ‘other’ Church. They have hats of all shapes and sizes (and that’s ignoring those wacky Patriarchs with their super-cool Orthodoxy caps).

But, best of all, some of those Cardinals wear Aviators.

A Cardinal, resplendent in red, wearing Avaitors looks just like a crazed fantasy of the modern cleric ‘ready for action.’ You can imagine that, in a moment of crisis, he would almost lackadaisically pull out Glock from beneath his robes to administer Church Justice before pulling back the hem of his robes and revealing a scooter, on which he would chase evil through the streets of Rome. Possibly, nay, essentially, he would have theme music (preferably a classical composition rescored by Joby Talbot). Then, once sanctity was restored he would return back to the Holy See to party the night away…

The hat, you must understand, doth maketh the man.

Neo-Catholicism needs an analogue for such men of action. We have no uncommon hats, no motorscooters or Glocks, and only one of our number has a pair of Aviators. Currently Neo-Catholicism’s greatest attributes are lethargy and a fanatical attachment to the sofa (currently residing in London). I am intent on thinking of choosing someone to change this. Someone with hats.

Or a really good pair of shades.

Definitely someone.

You may now make you final approach. Over and out.

Thank you for inviting me here today. I am going to speak to you about the books of the Bible.

Mostly about how we don’t have enough of them.

The Roman Catholics started it; they added in a load of special texts that some people call the ‘Apocrypha.’ Then the Eastern Orthodox Church added in a few more (probably to make the bumper book of Christian theology bigger and more thumpable). The Ethiopians, seemingly keen to not only expand Jewish Scripture added in not only more books of crazy religious fervour but obviously decided to start a whole new section which I will call the ‘Even Newer Testament.’

We, brothers and sisters, must do more. Not only more, but better.

Which is why Cardinal Darmeus (freshly returned from his adventures in the 23rd Parallel) and I have decided to petition anyone who will listen to add the following texts to the Bible.

One: King Lear – Poor Tom’s a-cold… in Hell!
Two: One Hundred Years of Punch – A pictorial history of Victoriana becoming Post-modernity
Three: Seven Things I know about my Mother… The Giant Robot (to be written) – bound to be a mantlepiece
Four: The Manifesto of Self-Revocation – Already a mantlepiece
Five: The Number 23 (which is to say that we want a page with 23 printed in bold, preferably in Garamond, standing somewhere between the Old and New Testament)

Modern people, especially modern theists, want, nay, need, a modern Bible filled with modern texts that mean as much to them as the current crop of dogma. It’s been near one thousand and nine hundred years since the last book was written and near one thousand and five hundred years since the canon was fixed. ‘Jeremiah’ was all fine and good for Hey-zeus (hmm… Maybe we should add the new, JMS overseen, ‘Jeremiah’ TV series as ‘Jeremiah II – DVD edition) but modern peoples want the wisdom of Paris and Britney, Hunter and Gore.

We need to rise up together as a literary group and reimage the most popular and best-selling book of all time. And find me not guilty of ‘Light Treason.’

The Defense rests.

PS. We could go the other way; get rid of any books with a numerical suffix and reduce the synoptic Gospels down to one (and write John into it). I’m thinking of a 300 page potboiler.

PPS. Not guilty.

The Prologue.

Many is the time I have spoken loudly and less fondly about the current fashion with placing diaries in the public view. Indeed, the first iteration of the modern ‘Manifesto…’ contains much to dissuade the faithful on this matter.

I understand the attraction, however; everyone would, at some time, like to express some of their views on matters private in a very public space, especially those thoughts that we really want to voice but can never can begin to form (due to the usual mores and restrictions of decent society).

You all know of what I speak, don’t you.

Brother Morthos, in a more lucid moment, once told me that my chief problem was that, as Pope, I speak my mind, and this has lead to a trail of discontinued friendships and the cessation of non-hostility on many fronts. Certainly, it has meant a wholesale reduction of those unsanitary business school-types that used to circulate the New Vatican of the Church and I have no issue at all in corrupting evangelists… Still, those are matters for another time. Still, even I must admit that there are moments where I bite my tongue, sometimes wisely and sometimes not so wisely.

Public diaries give you a second chance to ‘Sin(TM).’

And what a chance it is. A chance to tell a select audience that, had you had your wits about you, you would have said this, rather than that. That when someone thought you were thinking A you really thought B. That you wish something else had obtained when the crap hit the metaphorical fan.

Oh yes, important stuff.

I see the point of public bullentins when you go away. I see the (perverse) point of angsting to strangers because you have no friends. I even see the point of further supporting a burgeoning journalistic career. But when you use the public space to air your dirty laundry and to piss off people you either need to do it on a massive scale or not at all.

And now, children, without any further ado, I will read to you from ‘Run, Spot, Run.’

Today I wish to talk to you about writers and other artistic idealists.

I hope they rot in the fiery depthes of the hells they call home.

Tell me, have you ever heard someone of artistic intent moan incessantly about the fact that they have to write, that they need to write? Usually they are indolently smoking a fag and engaged in cleaning their rooms when they mention this; sometimes, to be truly perverse, they write about it and then show said writing to the world.

All so that we can appreciate their tortured existence.

Well, no more. The Neo-Catholic Church is currently cleansing itself of writers and other artistic idealists. We have no need of their angst, their whinging, their overt-gothness.

Bugger off, all of you.

Authors we like. Authors are writer-esque people who actually get the job done. Often they were writers who, one felictious (of fallacious (or fellatio-esque)) day, realised that it’s all about putting a manuscript in an envelope, and by jove, if they couldn’t do that then they’d stop whining and go off and get a job as a tax accountant.

(Which, I might add, most failed authors do.)

The Neo-Catholic Church likes people who do things. We mostly like them to keep the fuck away from us, but we still think they are admirable (if kept at a certain distance).

But we can no longer tolerant artistic types who waffle incessantly on needing to write (but hardly ever doing so).

It’s not a need, people, it’s a want. Needs are things you have to; wants are things you would like to do, and this is why you hardly ever do them. Because you don’t have to.

Bah, ’tis a subject that makes His Wholiness quite irrate.

I’m off to give pleasure to a duck.

Yes, I have taken to reading up the screen rather than down.

Sorry, you probably have no idea who I am or what I speak of, but that is the point of this whistle-stop tour of the seedier parts of the Diocese.

Oh, yes, I will have the extra large option, thank you.

Anyway, enough distraction… Ooh, I didn’t know they made those here? Mind if I try one? Well, same to you buddy.

Ah maps, both good and saucy. Did I mention seedy? Not to say that the Diocese has much by the way of less-than-seedy parts on its cheaply-produced visual aids. All of its parts are classified ‘Naughty.’ So much so that Mr. Ransome has replaced all maps of the Diocese with an A4 page featuring Verdana 64 point script of the word ‘Naughty!?!’

Mmm… Nice girlfriend; shame about the ape holding on to her shoulder. Sorry? Oh, you were listening.

Yep; reading up the screen. It’s one of those strange traditions we have in Western Society (TM) that we read from right to left… Sorry, you’re right, left to right and from top to bottom. So now I read from bottom to top. It passes the time and makes you think about the dissimilarity between the kinds of visual information we present to the laid public.

It’s a bit weird; you start off having no idea how things started, although sometimes you get a hint if the text has multiple pages. And you’d be surprised how often written materials have boring beginnings/endings.

Ah, yes. Thank you. Flannels in the corner? Thanks.

Yet reading bottom to up seems like a pleasant fix to common neck and back problems; go from a painful posture to a pleasant one over the course of a document.

It is somewhat informative of human nature that almost all (fortunately) documents only make sense in one direction.

Oh, you going? Want to exchange numbers?

Unpleasant harpy.

Crunch.

A distraction from the day’s festivities. I want to tell the great unwashed public a little something about friendship.

I have shunned, for a little while now, the usual mores and requirements of civilised society. I can do this because if there are only a few utility monsters, like myself, then the world finds us charming and we can get away with ediquitte murder. Still, that is a matter for another time…

And that time is now!

Sorry, dizzy spell.

One benefit to my nature is my almost blase approach to friendship. I do not feel obliged to friends perhaps in the way that society dictates I should. I like my friends and when I think of them, sometimes rarely, sometimes often, I think of them fondly and want to be with them. I do not, however, feel that I have to maintain friendships.

It’s a weird phrase, ‘maintain friendships;’ I suspect that most of you will both find my disdain of this maintenance both good and bad.

The bad first, because the bad is the most obvious; we do not like to maintain such things because such maintenance indicates a level of work that denigrates the notion of friendship. A friendship that needs this kind of maintenance is no real friendship; it is pure obligation and nothnig more. The friendship is kept alive via esoteric, quasi-erotic rituals designed to make you forget that you have moved on, matured or killed one of their family members (or vice versa).

The bad is obvious and it is unfortunate just how often it is true… Especially of you.

The good notion of maintenance is that friendships should not become stagnant and thus be of need of constant work. This is, of course, not true. I’m not denying the terrors of stagnation, but I am wondering why we feel that a friendship needs work to avoid. Surely the maintenance cost just indicates that the bad notion has arrived and you’re not willing to admit to it just yet.

Happiness is a strange form of apathy mixed with contentment.

I have a few really good friends. I am happy with the number; I have some of my very best friends safely ensconced in foreign climes and there are some people, two couples to be precise, who have kept me sane over the last few years, and to them I owe a great debt I can never repay. One of these sets of people I see weekly, the other I see twice a year and speak to just over double that.

Yet I am as close to the other as I am to the former.

Friendship is a bond, possibly one with filligie and naughty lingerie. When I feel its call I obey it. Yes, I regret not hearing it more often, but then again, perhaps it would not mean as much if I did.

…

Well, that’s serious. I was going to give a talk on why underwear is oppressive and I find myself waxing lyrical on platonic-bonding.

I really shouldn’t drink tea.