Category: morthos

The Third New Sermon of the Neo-Catholic Church

Most of you, if not all, were probably not expecting me today, here and especially in this tawdry uniform. I can explain; you see I have been let off early for good behaviour.

Indeed, I have been remarkably good in recent times; in an act of perverse mismanagement the Church is currently suffering a surfeit of funds, partially because I’ve been gainfully employing myself but mostly because I’ve stopped Brother Morthos from taking any money out of the ‘Shoot the Tories Into Space’ Fund (which, for the numerically interested of you, is responsible for 13% of the most recent advances in mid-to-large range projectile technologies).

Employment has been interesting; in need of a little more pocket money and a reason to leave the Bunker I became the Papal Under-secretary’s Under-secretary, making me simultaneously Mr. HORansome’s boss and underling. Whenever he fired me I’d just sign (and then counter-sign) a new contract, type another derogatory note to the Pope (the few of you who are not mentally challenged will know that this (or that) is me (or I?)) and then use Ransome’s stamp to signify it. It was then the matter of a moment to deliver said note to myself and then subsequently ask Hieronymus to send himself a note to the tune that I was notifying him that I would be watching his work all the closer. One should never call my Mother a deranged fruitbat with a brain the size of a Bismarck Herring.

Work, as you can ascertain, is ‘Fun’ for all concerned. Although I worry about the raft of conditional statements I have begun using…

The old days of slinking off to my bunk bed with a book of jumbo-sized elephant parts and a wagon of ‘holy water’ have gone the way of the gannet; now I type away for hours on end and have lustful thoughts about the women who wander in to our office asking about the services we offer (there is a sign outside which says ‘Woman, come in and ask about our services!’ which Hieronymus assures me was left over from the last establishment that lurked here). What it is that Ransome tells them I’ve yet to overhear, but it mustn’t please a large section of the female populace because he gets slapped (well, more so than usual).

Hieronymus Oliphant Ransome, Papal Under-secretary and guttersnipe, who I am sure you have been asking after recently, has taken to his native gutter journalism like, well, a guttersnipe. After the incendiary remarks made about him by one of the Cardinals (who is now very much on the outside of Neo-Catholicism) Mr. Ransome has taken to writing pieces on just how ineffectual any kind of social policy is, and why your Mother, in particular, is a deranged fruitbat with a brain the size of a Bismarck Herring. Considering that the Neo-Catholic Church really espouses no particular politic either way this has come as a shock to at least one member of the clergy, who was surprised that there were still elections going on.

Hieronymus’ views can be summarised as ‘The world is a collection of processes, none of which have any particular assigned purpose, and thus the world is working out as the processes dictate, which is neither good nor bad;’ at least this is the view he put forward in ‘Drinking With Children: Gin for the Under Fives as a Social Experiment.’ As far as I can gather, having had to type up most of it, his argument is that the world isn’t mean to function in any particular way; it’s just meant to be. If there is no purpose to existence other than to exist then you really can only pass judgement over existence if you import an idea of how things are meant to work, and that is a suspicious move (apparently). He calls the view that the world isn’t working out as ‘middle-class angst,’ claiming that it is symptomatic of the middle-classes to be brought up believing in things working out for the best and then being shocked when the world doesn’t provide it without large-scale help.

Frankly, I can’t help but be bemused by it; he seems to be espousing a kind of middle-class angst about middle-class angst (and if you buy my bemusement then I’m showing some degree of middle-class angst about middle-class angst about middle-class angst; this could go on ad nauseam)…

Which is why I plan to retire from my working life and returned to the onerous responsibility of keeping Morthos away from the torture cages and puppy farms. I’ll miss the steady pay check and the playful punching of the groin that my employer delivered, as well as not being able to engage in the jabbing of his kidneys on a daily basis, a regret I will just have to bear.

But it does have the immediate benefit in that I will not need to worry, unduly or at all, about the pros and cons of the modern lifestyle and the invasive nature of the media. No longer will I need to read social commentary or be made aware that certain things are just not done. Piqued self-interest always comes before the Empire’s fall and I want to be holidaying elsewhere when that happens, preferably in a bunker.

Ah, there comes the local constabulary; they’ll want to know what exactly I’ve been covering up with this policeman’s helmet.

Ta ra.

The Second New Sermon of the Neo-Catholic Church

From the mists of time comes a tale oft told…

In the short time I have been amongst you (five minutes if you count my dashing off for a pee when I arrived) I have learnt a great deal of your ways (your hygenie really is some of the worse I have ever seen, and I’ve spent time in the Filth Pits with the Not-so-Sanctus, More-Unsanitary Jack) and come to realise a fundamental truth about all of us, by which I mean all of you.

You see, you’re not like me.

Many of you are bound to be fainting with relief (or due to the stench) on this matter, and I blame you not. Being unlike me is probably a good thing; being unlike the person next to you is equally beneficial. Oh, you wear the same stained uniform (one which you dare not let your partner wash because they’ll ask that awkward question about the white mark on the left leg), you belong to the same clubs, read the same magazines and jointly worry about the opposite sex (in marathon drinking sessions). Fact is, if I were to look upon you from up on high, and I do, then I might well think of you as homogenous. Undifferentiated midgets, even.

But I know there is difference amongst you.

Which leads me on to the second point, which is the greater of the two and has less import to your egos. You see, just like there are differences amongst you there is also a quality of sameness that isn’t just the shared presence of noses, ears and the ever important left leg (without or without aforementioned stain).

Differences can be aggravating when you note them; well-loved films that suddenly get released in new versions often cause conniption fits, as can the presence of new radio series based on old books which were themselves the result of new radio series at at earlier stage of television’s development. It seems that you either need to be unnoticeably different or very noticeably different to be appreicated. Just being different seems not good enough.

Ah, commonsense truisms, you are thinking… And you are right. Can I offer a solution? No… But I now understand the ‘Why?’ of it all.

Minor differences are celebrated because they allow enough differentiation to make life distinguishable. Two friends, no matter how sexy their miniskirts, cannot wear the same (by which I mean highly similar) pink Ralph Lauren polo-shirt. It would cause trouble, misidentification and possibly the destruction of teenage sexual misadventure.

Major differences, the most uncommon, I am somewhat apprehensively pleased to say, are good because as long as they occur infrequently amongst the population then people find them interesting, amusing or charming rather than offensive and problematic. I can be brash, bombastic and overly open and honest and liked because of it for the sheer fact that virtually no one else is willing to be me.

I think people must think that being me is awkward or embaressing. And thank the gods above and below, because I’d hate to think that you wanted to be me. I have enough trouble with myself without all of you interferring.

Although it would improve your sanitary conditions, so you might want to consider it, you filthy beasts.

Oh, and if someone could remove this codpiece from my forehead I’d pay good money for the service.

The First New Sermon of the Neo-Catholic Church

Faithfully departed, we are gathered here today to commiserate…

Ah, sorry, wrong piece of parchment.

Faithfully departed, we are gathered here today to commiserate…

Hmm, may be this is the text I am meant to be reading… Cyclopean Edifices of Repressedness… Doom to the Shrivened Galactic Walnut… Happy-happy-go-go-fun-times!

Twelve days of Christmas my arse.

Sorry, this is really getting off track, especially since your fine folks of the Amalgamated Urinary Cake Dispensing Company have so kindly offered to liquor me up in exchange for a small talk and some illustrative slides of my latest trip to Greece (and when I say Greece I mean to the Greek who lives downstairs and waxes her moustache so it tickles me nicely).

I chose this venue to make my return, albeit brief and mostly unnoticed, to the public arena… Hehehe… Sorry; I thought I had written pubic. Then I thought I might have written ‘arenal,’ which isn’t a word but would be most suggestive if it were admitted to the lexicons of mighty, mighty English!

Anyway, I chose this place to mark my return for a multitude of reasons, none of which I will get into today as they are remarkably silly. What I will say is this:
Neo-Catholicism, is dead, baby! Undead!

Much has changed in the Church since last I spoke. The Cardinalature has been somewhat overhauled and our position (missionary, of course; can’t ignore the old jokes) in regard to heresy has been modified ever since I declared myself schismatic and demanded I be removed from the toilet.

Neo-Catholicism was never a tired joke, more a retired sketch of a possible stream of humour never fully realised. We codified ourselves (and by we I mean that bastard Ransome and his chief cheek monkey, Morthos) far too quickly and thus the crazy-crazy-fun times that marked the early days became the backstabbing acid-drop of the last two years.

But all retired sketches need to be reimaged so the cool kids can think they know what was going on before they hit sentience (and salience) and thus the time was ripe for a new strand of Neo-Catholic thought to hit the streets and seek fresh blood.

Blood. Blood! BLOOD!!!

And jam.

I would add more to this cavalcade of delicious irony and serve it with a helping of bratwurst, but I think the time has come to fill this mouth with your finest brandy. Then, once we are suitable unattired, we can start kicking the living crap out of Brother Morthos here, who has kindly allowed me to chloroform him and tie him up in this lovely hessian sack.

That will be all.

(Posted for His Wholiness by the Devil’s Parrakeet, Morthos)