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#######################
# #
# A CONCISE HISTORY #
# ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ #
# OF THE UNIVERSE #
# ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ #
# #
# ZAC BISHREY #
# ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ #
#######################
In the beginning (slightly before ST NEWS) there was...
The Creation of the Universe (5)
(Beware of other unauthentic stories)
Chapter 1
It is not widely known that God™ created the Universe in a fit
of pique, a bout of temper, and when no one was looking.
It is even less widely known that it was very early in the
morning when the unhappy event took place; but on what day and
at what time precisely, no one seems to know with any degree
of certainty, because God™ had not yet had time to create
desk-top calendars or make digital watches.
Rumour has it, that creation took place at precisely 0545 GMT
(Grand Mesopotamean Time) or there about, on Monday the 19th
of Nissan (later corrupted to April) in the year 3760 BC (ie
3760 Before Christmas), approximately.
A very clever cleric from Dublin University, however, disputed
the time and date of this minor event, and insisted that it
all happened on the stroke of the second hour of a ten-hour
day; Tuesday 27th October 4004 BC, according to his precise
calculations based on the ages of some middle eastern gents.
He also argued (correctly) that as God™ created man a biped,
because trousers have two legs and bicycles have two pedals,
it follows therefore, as night follows day, that if God™ had
intended the day to have 24 hours, then He would have put 12
fingers on each hand, and that is final.
To my certain knowledge, no one to this day has succeeded in
correcting our clerical friend, by confusing him with such
trivia as Hubble's Constant, the Universal Speed Criterion,
Darwinian evolution, dinosaur fossils, Carbon 14 dating, and
other devilish little tricks like that.
A mechanical (diesel) engineer and amateur astronomer (with a
modest telescope) from Eye near Peterborough did, however,
gather enough courage to ask our clerical friend: How is it
then, if there was no universe before 4004 BC, that we can now
observe stars and galaxies and other bits of rubbish like
that, whose light has been travelling towards us, not only for
hundreds of years, but for thousands and millions and billions
of years ? and what on earth do these massive monsters think
they are up to, by shining their light so brightly, all these
millions of years, before God™ created them ? eh ? eh ?
It is not known if our clerical friend actually understood the
point that our questioner was trying to make...
At any rate, he never gave an answer, for the simple reason
that he was brain-dead (probably) long before he finalised his
precise calculations for the time and date of the creation of
God's™ universe.
- - - - - -
Chapter 2
It was the racket that God's™ infant son was making (he was
raised exclusively on Liebfrau milch... honest, look it up in
your German dictionary), which had kept Him awake all night
and feeling moody and in bad temper; so He decided to amuse
Himself by making a Universe full of stars which rotate around
flat earths, and another star which goes walkies in front of
three middle eastern chaps (riding camels in broad daylight),
then hovering over a grotty stable like a stranded lawn mower
and absolutely refusing to budge.
He also created hell and damnation attendants, and gave them
jobs in the Ministry of Opted-Out Education, then called them
Volvo drivers, as a punishment for sinful motorbikers, and for
the purpose of having a big laugh at the expense of the motor-
bike riding fraternity, but that came much later.
In the meantime, this infant son of God's™ wife from a
previous marriage, had blue eyes, long fair hair, and wore a
trendy white nightshirt, which had wide sleeves and was long
enough to cover his sandals, according to Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelagniolo di Lodovico Buonarroti, and a host of other
experts on received guess-work, who understand these things,
and know all about this subject inside out.
God's™ infant son was fond of crying in the wilderness at the
slightest provocation (or none at all), enjoyed bringing down
temples for fun (or as an early example of kick-starting the
stagnant economy by introducing buoyancy into the building
industry), loved upsetting rich merchants for something to do,
cherished a good argument with crooked bankers to show off his
knowledge of negative equity, and went out of his way to vex
smug lawyers for the sheer joy of it. Serves them all right.
He was also the olympic champion of the new sport of pushing
camels through the eyes of needles.
Apart from all that, he was an acknowledged expert on drying
fig trees; though for what useful purpose that was intended to
be, no one ever found out yet, and the matter is still being
investigated in Barnsley by fingerprint experts of the West
Porche Police.
His favourite pastime, however, was setting fire to bushes.
Yes, there was a lot of arson-about in those days.
Gifts of pots of gold, gallons of Channel No.5, not to mention
jars of cascara cut little ice with him, because he had a big
chip on his shoulder, which he could not get rid of.
That was hardly surprising, because his mother's husband from
the previous marriage was a carpenter called Joe, who couldn't
afford a workmate, and used a blunt adze which showered chips
on everything and over everybody's shoulders, and went around
shouting interminably "it's all lies", and "that's another
fine mess you got me into Mary", but no one could decipher
what he meant by all that, even unto this day.
- - - - - -
Chapter 3
God™ sat all night trying to work out a plan for creating a
Universe, because He couldn't go to sleep by counting sheep,
or by reading a thesis on nonlinear finite element analysis;
for the simple reason that He had not yet created sheep to
count, let alone postulating a working hypothesis for laminar
structures, to bore Himself into slumber; and since He was
feeling moody and irritable, He was determined that if He
couldn't go to sleep, then nobody would.
Some astrologers, including a huge one-eyed amateur (who never
tires of telling you about his fifteen inch reflecting
telescope at the bottom of his garden and, not being au-fait
with italian, pronounces Giotto as jee-yoto), claim that they
owe it to themselves to scratch their heads in complete and
utter bewilderment and let you know that God™, with a big
bang, created a whole lot of insomniacs and mechanical
engineers and disk magazine editors, to sit up all night
writing various authentic versions of His biography.
Many historians, including a cosmologist from Bradford High
School and a young mechanical engineer from Peterborough,
insist that that is a load of second-hand codswallop, because
it was not so much a bang (since God™ hates loud noises even
more than He hates Volvo drivers and hell and damnation
attendants), but rather a hardly audible whimper (by using a
simple formula which he created for the purpose), but if
people are too lazy to work it out for themselves, then they
had better explain it to them in their own native language,
and in words of as few syllables as possible.
Needless to say, that creating a brand new Universe presented
a few problems that God™ had not thought about when He was
day-dreaming about the thankless project.
To start with, He had to buy billions of tons of good quality
top-soil from Doncaster, for the hanging gardens in Babylon,
and for all the allotments in Burnley, though for what reason,
no one has been able to work out yet.
At three pounds plus delivery and VAT per cubic meter, it was
a bargain really, in those days of single figure inflation.
Bargains, however, do not come cheap and if you want a genuine
bargain then you jolly well have to pay for it through the
nose. In other words it was going to cost Him a fortune, so
where was the money to come from dear ?
God™ thought He would create a machine for printing the money,
which to Him was almost (but not quite) as easy as ordering a
STEN disk-magazine from Dave Mooney.
His wife, however, told Him that that would make it necessary
for Him to double VAT (and more), to increase prescription
charges, impose a pole tax on the more unfortunate of His
creatures, put up the interest rate, and apply to the Deutsche
Bank to allow Him to move the shekel two percentage points
down the narrow band of ERM (ie Easily Recycled Money), to pay
for the top-soil from Doncaster.
It would also cause high inflation, she said, after all His
prudent policies, which brought it down from the punishingly
high levels to which it was allowed to drift at the end of the
previous universe, and would cause a lot of unemployment for
all the people that He was about to create, which was a pity
really, even though it was a price well worth paying for
lowering the inflation (figure), which was the winter scourge
of the previous (discontented) Universe.
God™ considered this wise counsel for seven seconds, then came
to the correct conclusion that His wife was right as always
(this is only inserted here because Maggie is looking over my
shoulder), so He passed the buck to the gurus in the Treasury,
and instructed them to go back to their droring boards and
come up with a solution that would be seen to be hurtin',
otherwise no one is ever going to believe that it was workin'.
- - - - - -
The Treasury gurus came up with the nifty idea of printing the
money first then creating a monetarist policy afterwards.
They also solved the (carefully planned) unemployment problem,
or Negative Employment Situation as they called it, so the
jobless do not notice that they are without work; by removing
from the statistics all the unemployed below retirement age,
thus reducing the dole (figure) to exactly zero, without
finding a single job for a single one of the idle devils.
More than that; they divided the working day into morning and
afternoon sessions, with ten minutes in between for a jam
butty and a cuppa, then claimed (correctly) that they doubled
employment at a stroke, and boasted modestly that they managed
to create twice as many jobs as there are people in the whole
universe, and that, they said, was very good news indeed.
To prove their point, they pinned up notices on the walls of
every job centre in every planetary system, inviting the idle
jobless and the self-unemployed to get on their bikes and
pedal to where they might find the jobs, if they looked hard
enough for them.
No one, however, succeeded in finding a single solitary one of
these elusive vacancies, because by an amazing coincidence
(and because the smart-art gurus in the Ministry of
Unemployment were fond of sick jokes), the vacancies never
happened to be on any planet where these jobs were advertised.
For your information; the gurus' ingenious device for reducing
the seasonally adjusted unemployment figure, while the number
of unemployed kept on rising, was by no means original,
because that trick had been recorded not only in the annals of
King Myrtle of Babylonia, but also in the diary of the Caliph
of Baghdad, as the eighteenth guru fiddle.
It is to the credit of the voting gumbies of Babylonia and the
community-poll-charge-tax payers of Baghdad, that they began
to smell a rat, after this scheme had been in operation for
only thirteen centuries, and that is why it was dropped by the
gurus after the eighteenth fiddle, and was never used again at
any time anywhere in the world...
Nevertheless, God™ was so impressed with this simple solution,
that He knighted the whole lot of gurus, and pinned gongs on
their aprons and rolled-up trousers, and put garters on their
silk stockings, then topped His gratitude by appointing them
as chairpersons of privateered companies at 495,000 pounds per
annum (index linked), and appointed their wives on the boards
of opted-out hospitals for good measure.
- - - - - -
Chapter 4
It was half past three in the afternoon when disaster struck.
God's™ son, after washing his feet, forgot to turn off the
unmetered Thames Water tap, so the whole Universe was flooded.
Thanks be to the Sumerians, who recorded the original episode
on tablet 11 of the "Epic of Gilgamish" (beware of the
plagiarised version in the Book of Almighty Truths), we know
now that the unfortunate incident took place in 3050 BC.
It is written (therefore the faithful among us wouldst declare
that it must be the holy truth), that the tap was left open
for forty days and forty nights.
Actually, the tap was left turned on for a little under a
fortnight, but the figure forty is a holy Babylonian number,
and must, therefore, be used wherever possible, whether in
context or not, as an approved alternative to the number seven
(another holy Babylonian number), whichever happens to be the
more outrageous, or looked prettier in print, in all authentic
and holy Babylonian stories.
The unmetered water gushing out of the tap, not only flooded
the whole universe, but the apple grove (with only one apple
tree in the middle of it, and a small snake), which had taken
God™ ages to cultivate was ruined, and the snake left in a
state of shock.
Needless to say, it was the gardener and his wife who got the
blame for all the fallen apples, and that earned them instant
dismissal from the garden of eden without so much as a final
warning, and certainly without any compensation.
On top of that, they were fined 50,000 pounds by Thames Water
plc, which this benevolent company donated instantly (in the
interest of the consumers) to the Babylonian Control Office
(their favourite charity), as a tax deductible donation to
help this charity towards the £10M expenses incurred during
the previous general election in the garden of Eden.
In addition to that, and as a just and well earned punishment,
the gardener and his wife were banished, together with their
two sons, to a cheap and cheerful black-hole at the fag-end of
the Universe called Eye, on the edge of a bog in the Soke of
Peterborough, where they all reside to this day.
These two souls considered their situation over a cup of tea,
then decided to go straight to Red Rombo, their Shop Steward,
who immediately adjusted a knowledgable frown on his face,
before enquiring from them very politely and in words of one
syllable: What the hell was it all about this time ?
The Shop Steward was not only a wise old owl, who had seen it
all before on the picket lines and factory gates, but also a
guy who knew on which side his bread was buttered.
Red Rombo, being a positive thinker, adhered correctly and
instinctively to the time-served work ethic, that solidarity
with your colleagues and doing right by your workmates is one
thing, but crossing the Boss up there is another kettle of
fish altogether; so he gave them a dollar and pointed them in
the direction of their Branch Secretary, asking them to pass
the buck on to him, then closed the door behind them loudly,
and re-lit his pipe with the No Smoking sign which he peeled
from the wall behind him.
The Branch Secretary greeted them very politely, asked them to
sit down and offered them two free car-stickers advertising
"Equal Opportunities Year" from his vast stock of 5000, which
Head Office had sent him four and a half years previously but
has been unable to find anyone interested enough to take them
off his hands.
They declined his offer graciously, so he proceeded to open a
battered old file which he pulled out from an old wooden
filing cabinet, with the names of the previous Branch
Secretaries carved on the top, with blunt pen-knives.
The Branch Secretary (being a lateral thinker) ran his index
finger slowly and deliberately, down a long list of excuses,
until he found a suitable one.
With a long slow breath which he drew through pursed lips over
a period of one minute and twenty four seconds, he polished
his reading glasses whilst shaking his head slowly, from right
to left and back again, for exactly three and a half times.
It took him another forty seven seconds to put his glasses
back on his nose and curl the hooks over his ears, before he
looked sympathetically at Mr Adam (that was the gardener's
name, didn't I tell you ?).
He informed Mr Adam (corrupted from Addem - a place name in
Arabia, if you really want to know) and his partner Eve
(registered on her birth certificate as Hhawwa - parents
unknown), that their membership subscriptions were in arrears
for at least a week, which made it impossible for him to do
anything for them within the newly created "Union Rule Book"
and the "Practical Guide for Branch Chairs and Secretaries",
and that their best course of action was to see the RO (which
is unionese for Regional Officer), down in Bishop's Stortford.
It took the Regional Officer seven seconds exactly to
establish that he could not help them -no way- because of
the new union-bashing law, which was introduced by the gurus
in the Ministry of Unemployment for just such an eventuality.
Mr and Mrs Adam felt rather depressed and began to have second
thoughts about continuing their membership in the union, so to
cheer them up, and to banish the daft thought of leaving the
union from their minds, the RO read to them the case of Regina
versus Ardour Scarhill, who was fined 14p plus VAT for leaving
the tap on (in a truffle mine), with three hundred and twenty
nine thousand pounds in legal costs, plus seven and a half
million pounds for contempt of court, because he spat on the
pavement after leaving the courtroom.
The story of Ardour Scarhill's trials and tribulations made Mr
and Mrs Adam giddy with laughter and it left them rolling on
the floor, kicking their legs up in the air. It also cheered
them up to such a ridiculous extent that they paid the week's
arrears and renewed their membership in the union on the spot,
giggling uncontrollably while they signed a new Standing Order
Mandate drawn on their joint account.
The Regional Officer felt so pleased with himself that he
awarded himself on the spot a salary increase of nine percent,
back-dated to the twenty fifth of December of the previous
year, then put his shoes on, ready to take the dog out for a
walk, before sending Mr and Mrs Adam off to see NO (National
Officer) Anne Wibson, the Full Time Officer in charge of the
Equal-Opportunities and Unequal-Discriminations Department, at
Head Office in Wandsworth.
Mrs Wibson considered the matter very carefully for three and
a half seconds, then came to the inescapable conclusion, that
since Mr and Mrs Adam were equally discriminated against and
were given an exactly equal opportunity to be dismissed
summarily together, and without compensation for either of
them, she couldn't see how her Department could help, but
asked them not to hesitate to contact her office again if they
felt that she could be of further assistance, then sent them
off to see the Assistant General Manager, within whose remit,
she said, these responsibilities lie.
She wasn't quite certain what all that meant, but she thought
it sounded correct, and had an official ring to it, as befits
the dignity of her position in the organisation.
The Assistant General Manager heard rumour of the case, so he
applied for instantaneous voluntary redundancy, because he
said he wanted to spend more time with his family; but being a
proper gentleman, he only signed the redundancy documents
after asking someone to pass them on to the General Manager.
The General Manager saw them coming, so he decided there and
then to take twenty eight weeks off work with immediate
effect, as a combined praternity and sick leave (on full pay
with overtime and bonuses), to which he was entitled under the
union's terms and conditions of employment (because he was in
uninterrupted and continuous employment at Head Office for a
whole week).
The matter was entrusted in the capable hands of Brian, a
gem of a man, but despite that fact, he was also a member of
the NEC (National Executive Council to you and me) and who,
everybody agreed, was sure to do something about the Adam's
case, because he was ever such a nice chap.
Brian told them cheerfully that in his opinion, he/she had a
perfectly legitimate cause for dispute/complaint, and that the
union would do everything in its power (and more), and/or
enable/authorise contingency plans for industrial action, or a
march to Downham Street and a rally in Trafalgar Square,
if/when necessary, to help/assist them; whether their case was
ultra-vires the new union-bashing law or not.
After all, he said, it was for that purpose that our founding
martyrs created the "Society of Turf Employees and Nurserymen"
(or STEN for short).
The union, said Brian, would move heaven/earth in their just
demand and legitimate claim, and would use best collective
practice in the endeavour.
Furthermore, he would see to it that not a single stone was to
be left unturned, and would instruct a firm of solicitors in
Nottingham to take their case to the highest authority in
Eden, or even to ACAS.
Brian stopped for a gulp of stagnant water with a dash of
benzin, from an up-market green bottle, then continued before
he finished swallowing (which made him cough):
...but unfortunately, and what a shame it was, and how it
broke his heart, and oh-dear oh-dear oh-dear, there was a tiny
little snag; because God™ had not yet created ACAS to take
them to, and He had already abolished the Unfair Dismissals
Court in Eden, because God™ decided there was no need to
waste taxpayers' money on an extra tier of legal bureaucracy.
Brian with tears in his heart, deposited Mr and Mrs Adam
outside the door of one of the seven Assistant General
Secretaries, who, Brian was not only certain, but was also
sure, and had no doubt at all, that the AGS would be able to
help them, and promptly left the building to use his free
triple luncheon-vouchers, to which he was fully entitled under
the union's terms and conditions of employment, which were
drafted when he was chairperson of the Union's Terms and
Conditions of Employment Sub-Committee.
The AGS, a Mr Jack Scar (née Ass), an idiot by profession and
qualification, and a moron by many years of practical
experience, decided to take early retirement on full pay (with
overtime) and a nice lump-sum of 247,000 pounds (to which he
was legally entitled under the union's terms and conditions of
employment), rather than be involved in this messy affair,
which he could not, for the life of him, understand.
The AGS found it difficult to understand the case which Mr and
Mrs Adam brought before him, even after the gardener and his
wife had tried their best to explain it to him seven times.
It was four times actually but don't forget that Holy
Babylonian Bull which requires the number seven, or forty, or
multiples of one or the other, or combinations thereof, to be
used in all such holy Babylonian stories.
The gardener also used seven sketches plus a completed, signed
and witnessed Accident (Workplace) Schedule of forty numbered
paragraphs, and had asked a Speech Therapist mate of his to
help explain the incident to the AGS in words of not more than
seven (nudge/wink) syllables, but all to no avail.
Though the AGS never did understand what on earth Mr and Mrs
Adam were chuntering on about, he nevertheless found it
necessary, in the circumstances, to weep a little for their
benefit, at what he thought was, apparently, a predicament.
He was rather annoyed to have to do that, because he was
saving his tears to let flow during an after-dinner speech at
the end of the following August, which he was to read from a
script prepared by his worship the General Secretary, to mark
the retirement of the General Secretary himself, and asked his
typist to take them to the top floor to see the Gen. Sec.
His gracious mightiness Keith Gillmore, the General Secretary
(a big pillar of society), was drafting an ad hoc (and off the
cuff) speech, which he was invited to deliver at a solidarity
rally in Hyde Park, in honour of a visiting Brother from
abroad, so there was not even a weight challenged (i.e. fat)
chance of sparing any of his precious time to deal with such a
trivial matter; instead, he asked his Private and Personal
Secretaries to enquire if the gardener and his wife were
interested in raising the level of their consciousness, by
buying a copy of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists",
autographed by himself with a rubber stamp.
The General Secretary also instructed his Filing and Clerical
Secretaries to fetch him a nice cup of tea with a dash of milk
and two lumps of sugar, and a chocolate biscuit please, from
his private kitchen, and while they were at it:
To tell the Assistant General Secretary (Redundancies and Non-
Industrial Disputes Department), if they can find him...
To tell the National Executive Council member, when he comes
back from his lunch later that evening...
To tell the Chairperson of the Finance and General Purposes
Sub-Committee, as soon as he has finished polishing his putter
and packed away the practice balls...
To tell one of the fourteen General Managers in the Records
Department (Arrears -Direct Debit- Office), when he comes back
from his holiday in Menorca...
To tell the Deputy Assistant General Manager (Industrial
Disputes -Cases Pending- Section), when she returns from her
compassionate leave...
To tell the Acting Director of the Membership (Agricultural)
Office, if he decides to use his flexi-time and comes to work
in the office that day...
To tell one of the Supervisors in the Subscriptions (Overdue)
Section, when he has a few minutes to spare...
To tell the appropriate Regional Officer (Parks and Amenities
- Division A) when he returns from walking the dog...
To tell the Branch Secretary (Eastern Eden Regional Council -
Branch 0861), when BT have re-connected his telephone...
To advise Mr and Mrs Adam to go and discuss the matter with
Red Rombo their Shop Steward, who enquired from them politely:
WHAT the hell was it all about THIS time...
- - - - - -
Chapter 5
We have now reached the point in this epic when you should
begin to become a little confused...
Because, if you had to ask yourself the silly question of:
"How come God™ could buy top soil from Doncaster, when He had
not yet created that ridiculous place ?"
...without getting a silly answer, then it is obvious that you
have not yet fully understood the mechanics of creation.
The silly trick, if you were daft enough to want to create an
infinite Universe all in one go with a totally ridiculous big-
bang, is to beg from someone an infinite amount of energy to
create your universe in the first instance, then to borrow
from your friendly loan-shark infinite amount of energy
(again) to squeeze it all into one enormous black-hole, then
steal from someone else infinite amount of energy (one more
time) to blow your universe out to smithereens !
But you haven't finished yet !
Because only after you have created your universe, may you
create a law of conservation of energy. Any attempt to do it
the other way round, by having a law of conservation of energy
before you start creating your universe, or for that matter,
creating even a small baby; would end up like your sons'
contributions to the housekeeping budget, i.e. exactly zero.
If, however, you are like me, one of those stubborn people who
will not accept this explanation as the acknowledged easy cop-
out solution to this utterly insoluble problem, without such
little trivia as evidence and proof and other small matters
like that, and if you were smart enough, or nosey enough, to
want to know the real truth about how God™ created the whole
universe without costing Him a penny, then you need go no
further, or waste your time and money reading books on the
subject of the history of brief time...
The solution to the baffling puzzle of creating a universe for
free, is not only patently obvious, but also incredibly easy
to understand. This becomes perfectly clear when you realise
that one of God's™ many attributes is that He is a bit of a
mathematician, and very fond of using His Atari stone tablet,
and a small pocket calculator.
It so happened, that while He was doodling one day on some
tablets of stone with hammer and chisel, and using a neat
little programmable calculator (TI-59 if you really must
know), He discovered that the sum of all the vectors under a
complete sinusoidal curve is exactly zero. (oh yes).
So He came to the rather obvious conclusion, that if He was to
give nothingness (which is all there was, where the universe
stands today, apart from a small black hole where Peterborough
is now), just a tiny little nudge, then He would start the
process of creation going, and a whole brand new Universe as
tiny as He wished, or as huge as He liked, would then
oscillate, between a positive maximum and a negative minimum,
and back again, and again, and again ad nauseam.
God™ was in no hurry of course and had bags of time on His
hands all night, since He could not go to sleep because of the
crying baby; so instead of creating the whole shooting match
in one big bang (as some silly people claim, because they
haven't the foggiest idea how He did it), He decided to start
the process going by throwing a pair of dice, to see who, or
what, shall be the first thing to be created.
The lucky punter was a single solitary unit of nothingness, a
tiny little non-entity, which measured exactly nothing and was
too small to see even with the naked eye.
He took this non-entity from His vast store of nothingness and
gave it a tiny little push to start it oscillating, which made
it exist for the first time ever. He then asked it if it had
any preferences for a name, but the newly born little entity
was neutral about that subject, so He called it neutron.
Being completely neutral, as any non-aligned little country,
or any self respecting sit-on-the-fence and middle-of-the-road
political party would tell you; is a very dangerous and
unstable position in which to be; because it gets shot at from
both sides of the fence, just prior to being run over by a
juggernaut; with the consequence that it either merges with
another party, or splits apart (to name but one process).
Another example of nothingness (or unstable neutrality), might
be a razor blade trying desperately hard to balance itself
with perfect neutrality on its sharp edge, with the weight on
the right of the edge being perfectly balanced by the weight
(in permanent and loyal opposition), on the left.
It does not take a genius to work out from this analogy (even
though analogies are never perfect), that it takes next to no
effort at all (zero force in fact) to make the razor blade
fall over to the far right, or to the loony left; though being
a total gumby, it usually plays it boringly safe, and topples
over to the extreme right, time and time and time and time
again (four times, at least, and the fifth time is confidently
being predicted to be a virtual certainty).
And so it was with our newly born neutral friend, the neutron.
But its boringly neutral and, therefore, unstable state, was
soon put right, by having a tiny part of itself shoot straight
out and go into orbit around the central, much heavier part
(by a factor of 1836 times, if you really want to know).
God™ observed the trick which the neutron had performed, "and
He saw that it was good", so He named the central part proton,
because it was the prototype of all others like it that would
come afterwards, and called the orbiting little monkey,
electron, because it elected to leave the matrimonial home.
He also decided to call the two pieces when they are living
together in harmony (albeit at a respectable distance apart),
a hydrogen atom, for reasons better known to Himself.
God™ gave the dice a couple of shakes then tossed them again,
to see whose turn it was to be created next.
This proves conclusively that Dr Albert of planet earth was
only joking really with his friend Max when he said to him,
while the two of them were strolling in the garden on a sunny
Saturday afternoon, that "Gott™ Würfelt nicht".
When God™ weighed the two bits resulting from the trial
divorce (on precision bathroom scales), He found, to His utter
amazement, that the total weight of the two bits, was ever so
slightly less than the weight of the original neutron.
God™ started looking hard for the missing bit, because it was
necessary for Him to enter its weight into the ledger, before
the auditors came round to inspect the books.
He had no difficulty at all in finding the missing little bit,
because although it was moving at a terrifyingly high velocity
(at the speed of light in fact, or more accurately, the
Universal Speed Criterion), it was also shining ever so
brightly, which He thought would be rather useful for taking
photos, so He named it photon.
He caught the photon and put it on His precision bathroom
scales, confidently expecting it to weigh the same as the
missing mass, but to His utter astonishment, He found that the
weighing machine failed to register any weight at all, even
after He re-calibrated the scales seven times.
With the annual stock-taking coming round soon, He had to do
something about the missing mass, otherwise, the auditors and
the Director of Public Prosecutions (when he could take a
little time from his other, more pressing engagements) would
have a field day in filing plaints in the district court.
God™ came (correctly) to the conclusion that by flitting about
at a terrifying speed, the photon must have used a wee bit of
energy, so, using His little TI-59 programmable calculator, He
worked out a neat little formula, equating the energy used by
the photon, with the missing mass and the terrifying speed.
That satisfied the auditors perfectly, even though they didn't
have a clue what in heaven He was on about; and the DPP (who
had a lesser understanding of physics than Sir Nigel Lamond
about the green shoots of economic miracles, peeping from
around the next corner but one), heaved a huge sigh of relief
for not having to prepare yet another case (in the public
interest), and that gave him more time to do the things he
enjoyed doing best, and an excuse not to kerb his desire for
driving ever so slowly on the pavement in his Skoda.
It took an awful long time for Dr Albert from planet earth,
and a number of scientists from other planets round about, to
cotton-on to God's™ formula, which was simply: E = m c c
That means (without boring you with details of the units used
in the formula) that energy is equal to the mass of a matter,
multiplied by the universal speed criterion once, then once
more for luck, and has nothing whatever to do with cricket.
But if you insist on being bored with detail, all right then:
1 gramme of matter (which is not a lot in terms of meat from
the butchers, or even in terms of soya beans, if you happen to
be a vegan; is equal to 2150000000000 calories (honest).
How else do you think you can blow up a whole city (in a just
cause), by the inefficient use of not more than 3% of about as
much material as you can carry in your bombag ! eh ?
Some lesser mortals, however, remained obdurate, and insisted,
even as unto this day, that the little bit of missing mass, is
some echo of energy left over from a "big bang", in which God™
created the universe all in one go, without ever having to
satisfy themselves or anybody else, just where He got an ear-
muff, and all the stuff in the universe from; but to my mind,
that is a load of tripe and no mistake and you best ignore it.
- - - - - -
Great many other hydrogen atoms came into being by exactly the
same free-of-charge process using the same pair of dice, and
is going on continuously, and spontaneously (because God™ soon
became fed up with shaking and throwing the dice), everywhere
in space, and you can take my word on that.
Unless you have led a very sheltered life, you should know by
now that dice rolling is rather unpredictable, unless you
happen to be a croupier, or a crooner who owns the casino.
It is, therefore, rather obvious that in some parts of space
there will be a handful more atoms coming into being than in
other locations, hence the little ripples of unevenness that
you see, if you look out ever so carefully for them, and
particularly if you use a space telescope which costs a
fortune to design and have installed into it, a bent mirror.
These ripples caused quite a lot of excitement in some
scientific clubs lately, where the club members spend an awful
lot of time praising and congratulating each other grudgingly,
and praying singly and in groups, that the ripples might have
something, anything (please God) to do with their hilarious
(if it wasn't so mindlessly stupid) big-bang theory.
The more hydrogen atoms are produced, the more they push away
the other bits of rubbish and expand the space around them;
rather like a rubber balloon (if you can imagine one without a
skin - because analogies are never perfect), would increase in
size as more air is introduced into it, which is why the
universe is expanding with linear acceleration in every
direction all the time; and that is also why every point in
God's™ universe seems (from its own point of view), to be at
the centre of the whole universe; just like each and every
single point on the surface of the earth is itself (like every
other point), at the centre of that surface of the globe.
Or did you really think that everything in the universe is
moving away from you, because by the most amazing coincidence
in the whole history of God's™ creation, you just happen to be
sitting right at the very point, which just happens to be the
centre of an exploding universe ?!
If the entire universe (according to the silly big-bangers)
was concentrated in one dimensionless point (ie literally, the
mother and father of all black holes), how did you and I and
all the suns and planetary systems and galaxies and all the
other bits of rubbish within this amazingly massive universe
manage to escape from that primordial blackhole then ? eh ?
If the temperature at the centre of a "big-bang" at the time
of an "all-in-one" creation, according to the gropers in the
dark and the by-God™-and-by-guess workers (ie the big-bangers)
was a trillion gillion zillion degrees kelvin (at least !), as
far as they could guess from the weather forecast by working
backward from the heat wave over the Dogger Bank last week,
then why did Adam need to wear a fig leaf for warmth (it was
written in the Big Book of Almighty Truths, therefore it must
be true), just a few days after the universe was created, when
it was (supposedly) so damnably hot ? eh ?
Forget it, there was no such thing as a "big-bang" creation.
Don't let the big-bangers insult your intelligence with it.
The fact of the matter is, that from the huge number of
hydrogen atoms produced by the highly cost-effective process
of producing everything without really creating anything, came
the suns, the planets, the floppy disks, all the baked beans
that you can eat, the cat next door, and you and me.
The whole business began, when God™ gave nothingness a little
push (one tiny parcel of nothing at a time), or if you want to
be technical about, just one hydrogen atom in a space the size
of St Paul's Cathedral, over the course of one year; which
doesn't seem to be a lot by everyday human standards of space
and time, but repeated over the whole of space, and in God's™
own time, is an awful lot by any standard.
That is exactly how the whole of God's™ universe was created,
and continues to be created, and increasing in size, a little
bit at a time.
Since God™ designed the tiny primordial components of His
universe to oscillate between a positive state on one side of
zero, to an equal and opposite state, on the other side of
zero, therefore, the sum total of God's™ creation remains
zero, without, as it were, having to produce a rabbit out of a
hat or "the heaven and earth out of the word of his mouth", as
some magicians, the clerical fraternity, some second-rate
cosmologists, and one-eyed astronomers would have you believe.
This satisfies the law of conservation of energy perfectly, a
law which God™ created even before He started His amazingly
simple project of bringing the universe into being, at no cost
whatever to Himself.
Since the sum total of this oscillation is exactly zero, it is
perfectly clear, therefore, that God™ has the honour of being
the first in recorded history, who managed to obtain anything
from and for nothing; except disk magazine editors and public
domain punters, who don't count.
Easy really when you know how, but when it came to filling the
Universe with people, God™ decided to have a bit of fun.
- - - - - -
Chapter 6
God™ started off by creating students, idiots, young people,
and public domain punters for practice, and for a bit of a
lark, and also to make Him go to sleep with boredom, but that
did not work, so after seven days (six actually, but remember
that Babylonian Bull), He decided to start all over again.
He created humans in His own image, but when He saw how awful
they turned out to be, He was sore displeased with His latest
handiwork and said unto them "Doth any of you mindeth awfully
being given silly names that twisteth thine tongues thereof ?"
They said that they couldn't care a damn, so He named them
homo-erectus and cro-magnons and neanderthals.
Many theologists, lots of hell and damnation attendants,
masses of lay members of many synods throughout the world, and
other experts of that ilk, took the utterings of these ancient
creatures as hallowed truths, after adding to them lots of
choice words and phrases of their own, here and there.
They picked the words of these ancients separately, and
juxtaposed each one with other words and phrases invented and
written on scrolls, parchments and tablets of stone over the
centuries, then took other words and phrases uttered in
connection with some totally unrelated subjects, to prove
conclusively to the faithful among us, that they were in fact
clear predictions of a future global warming, prophecies about
the depletion of the ozone layer over antarctica, the comings
and goings of heavenly kingdoms, or anything else which, from
time to time, came into their heads, according to current
vogues, needs of power-politics, territorial expansion (for
legitimate self defence) and other such viable circumstance.
- - - - - -
It is sad to relate that after the first three experiments,
God's™ fourth prototype model, the homo-sapien, was a bit of a
flop, at the first attempt, and not much of an improvement,
because He was tired from lack of sleep, due to the fact that
He had not yet created a Sunday in the week, when nobody must
indulge in any work of any kind, not even creating humans.
Not too pleased with His latest handiwork He had a cup of tea,
then created mechanical engineers, but He broke the mould
immediately afterwards, because many gurus, astrologers, lay
members of synods, ministers of set-aside agriculture, hell
and damnation experts, and professors of theology (to name the
same), insisted with an overdose of vehemence and a dash of
holy water, that these idle sods were a retrograde step.
They said they were ever so surprised that He should ever have
contemplated such monstrosities, and they hissed and gnashed
their teeth, then threw handfuls of polluted Windscale dust
over their nightshirts and said unto Him "Thou hath caused thy
iniquity to pass from thine hands unto thine holy universe
roundabout by creating these idle loafers, such that the heart
turneth within us, and the eye runneth with water abundantly
with sore and very great lamentations from this affliction,
and we sore beseech thee therefore to desist".
Have you noticed how supplicants never say PLEASE when they
talk to Him to ask Him for all sorts of favour ?
GIVE us this day our daily bread.
SEND your angels to protect me.
TAKE this affliction from me.
SHOWER me with your mercy.
PLACE me in your hands.
PROTECT me from evil.
Thy WILL be done !
WALK beside me.
KYRIE eleison.
etc etc etc.
But God™ wouldst not listen to them, or perhaps He listened
but His answer was NO, as they say on thought-for-the-day !
morning, afternoon and night on Radio 4; nor would He give up
further research and development into making humans, despite
the catastrophe with those mechanical (diesel) engineers;
instead, He decided it was time to have a break and a cup of
tea, to work out some means of feeding the new improved
version of humans, and to create expensive slimming pills, so
these humans can take off the extra weight, after they have
just put it on with take-away meals from the local chippie.
It occurred to Him that it would be sensible to cover His
creatures with chlorophyll, so these creatures could stretch
out on a sunny beach for an hour or two whenever they fancied
a heavy meal, or to go for a short stroll in the garden when
they felt the need for a quick snack; but most of the
available supply of chlorophyll was already used up for making
the garden of eden (and the single bisexual apple tree in the
garden), all ruined by the flood.
He finally came to the logical conclusion that since brass
paper weights and door stops were cast from melted down brand-
new Swiss watches, as was the custom in those days, He decided
to give all His creatures dominion over the rest of all His
other creatures, so they would hunt each other down, and munch
their fantastically intricate mechanism, for a meal. Yum Yum.
- - - - - -
Chapter 7
To tell you the truth, God™ was getting very depressed by this
time, so He decided to cheer Himself up with a joke...
He took His thinking cap off, had another cup of tea (He was
tea-total) and created Uncle Dave.
Everybody now agrees that that was not so much a joke, as an
unmitigated disaster, because Uncle Dave turned out to be the
genius responsible for inventing a device, which he wanted to
call a pedal car (assisted by a small electric motor powered
by a torch battery), but decided against it, because he could
not peddle it to anyone; and the Honda agent would not allow
this contraption to be parked outside his premises in
Whittlesey, because he said it would frighten the motor-bikers
away, and because his estate agent had advised him (wisely)
that it would bring down the value of the property.
That is precisely why millions of people are paying more for
their homes in mortgages than their houses are worth, and has
nothing whatever to do with economic miracles, ERM, or prudent
government policies. It is all down to Uncle Dave's pedal car,
which is now out of production, and that, for home buyers, is
very good news indeed.
In strict comparison with other people who were hanging about
at the time of creation, Uncle Dave was a clever man indeed,
and was competent at inventing useless (but fun) contraptions,
which are capable of travelling at the speed of light.
Uncle Dave did not have too much difficulty in designing a
contraption in the form of a huge lenticular disk (or mother-
ship as some people would insist on calling it), nor did he
have difficulty in developing a neutron-drive motor, to propel
his machine at enormous speed in the space between the stars.
The reason for the ease of movement of Uncle Dave's machine
between the planets and stars and galaxies, is because God™
did not bother to fill interstellar space with gravity; but
Uncle Dave had a big headache in trying to design a double-
sided, lenticular disk drive unit which would stop his
contraption from being pulled towards planets and stars and
black-holes (should he come too close to them), into which
God™ had poured enormous amounts of gravity, to keep people
from drifting away into empty space and getting lost.
Uncle Dave borrowed a book on the theory and application of
gravito-magnetism from the public library, just before it was
privatised and turned into a bingo hall, and the books pulped
to make high quality gutter tabloids.
He collected bits of copper wire, some sheets of magnesium, an
old plastic canopy from a MiG-15 which was shot down over
Korea, a small pedal-driven nuclear reactor, and the freezer
from his partner's kitchen, then shut himself up in his huge
garage, with the book.
Uncle Dave wound the wire inside a huge circular tube, made of
pure magnesium; put the reactor inside a magnesium sphere in
the centre of the circle; connected the sphere to the circular
tube with a piece of magnesium pipe, set at a slight angle.
He plugged the freezer into the mains socket, using a long
extension cable, then covered the contraption with magnesium
sheets, which he pop-riveted together in the form of a high
density double sided disk, or two saucers stuck together with
their hollow sides facing each other; because (as if you
needed to be told) that was the logical, and physically, the
most economical shape for housing the coil of copper wire.
He then put his sun-glasses on (to look cool), and fixed the
MiG-15 canopy (to see where he was going, for a change) on top
of this "saucer" (for want of a better word for Uncle Dave's
contraption), and attached a set of flashing hazard lights
(for effect), taken from his wife's brand new Skoda, which she
won as a runner-up prize in a WI raffle the previous evening.
The book was very clear in describing a gravitational device,
based on the theory and principles of gravito-magnetic fields.
The clarity of the book is hardly surprising, because it was
published by the same firm who printed the full instructions
for assembling another of Uncle Dave's inventions, an LED
watch he called "Dark Night", which could tell you a lot about
the inventor, but could not tell you the time of day to save
its life, no matter how often or how hard you punched the
flimsy little plastic switch cover, which had printed on the
inside of it, so you can't see it, in the same colour as the
plastic cover (black of course), the very helpful instruction
of "Do Not Stand Here" in small user-friendly letters.
Uncle Dave settled himself comfortably on a seat which he
nicknamed Knumbum, borrowed from an old tricycle which
belonged to his young daughter.
He switched on the freezer and let it run at full chat with
the door wide open, to keep the copper coil nice and cool,
then pedalled the reactor with all his strength, nourished by
gallons of tea with a dash of milk and two lumps of sugar.
A strange thing happened, when, thanks to Uncle Dave's hard
pedalling, the reactor reached critical mass.
No the contraption did not blow up.
- - - - - -
As the billions of neutrons came flying out of the reactor,
they shot through the connecting pipe into the huge circular
tube, whizzing round and round over the copper wire, which
made the contraption glow a little, giving it a pearly aura.
With God's™ universe oscillating between a positive state and
a negative state (or left and right, or plus and minus, or up
and down, or call it what you will, since these terms are
merely conventions for opposite states), Uncle Dave adjusted
the magneto-gravitational force, by controlling the speed of
pedalling, until his contraption and everything inside it were
ever so slightly out of phase with the rest of God's™
universe, and pushing hard against the gravitational force of
the nearest planet which was around at the time, and which by
pure coincidence, just happened to be the planet earth, where
Uncle Dave lived, but it could have been any other.
The gravitational field of the earth found itself being pushed
by the magneto-gravitational force of Uncle Dave's
contraption; but since the earth is much bigger and stronger
than the machine, she was not going to be pushed around by a
little upstart like that; therefore, it was Uncle Dave's
contraption which had to give way; so they shot away at a
truly phenomenal speed, without feeling any ill effects
whatsoever, because the magneto-gravitational ring affected
every particle inside the contraption with exactly the same
force and in equal measure.
It was rather fortunate that as a consequence of the neutrons
whizzing round the copper wire, while the reactor was at
critical mass, a tough gravito-magnetic field was induced over
the outer skin of Uncle Dave's contraption. This proved to be
a life-saver, because it was totally resistant to damage from
stones being flung at it by hooligans, and air-to-air missiles
fired at it by over-enthusiastic P51-D Mustang pilots.
Uncle Dave was delighted with his little toy, so he started to
pedal faster and faster, to satisfy his noseyness and just to
see what would happen; when another funny thing happened.
No the contraption did not blow up.
- - - - - -
Increasing magneto-gravitational force, put the contraption
further and further out of phase with God's™ universe.
Despite the enormous acceleration which the contraption was
demonstrating with consummate ease, neither Uncle Dave nor the
contraption suffered any ill effects (as explained earlier, so
there is no need to go over it again), and those nosey parkers
standing on the ground watching, were treated to some very
strange spectacles.
As they watched the contraption whiz around in circles, and
swoop over their heads at enormous speed, then stand still in
mid-air (and other juvenile antics like that), they swore
blind that up there was the contraption one moment, but in the
next instant it vanished into thin air; so they went home and
wrote letters to newspaper editors, to tell them all about it;
padded and fortified with a considerable amount of properly
controlled and carefully measured exaggeration, of course, as
all good scribes should.
The Daily Postage, The Moon, and The Onlooker dismissed the
sightings out of hand immediately and without any hesitation,
because their journalists were not quick enough to be the
first to invent the truth about them, and they were adamant in
pointing out (with instant government approval), even before
they finished reading the letters, that what the silly
observers on the ground were hallucinating about, was no such
thing as Uncle Dave's contraption, but the planet Venus.
We know of course that Uncle Dave and his contraption did not
actually vanish; they were slightly out of phase with the rest
of God's™ universe, and that is why they seemed to disappear.
- - - - - -
If you have ever wondered about poltergeists and ghosties and
elfs and other weirdies that go bump in the night, and shadowy
things that appear to be on the verge of visibility, or seem
to walk with ease through solid brick walls, and other similar
pranks like that; wonder no more, because you now have the
legitimate answer:
These ghosts and poltergeists and phantoms are nothing more
than manifestations of real people and objects which are in
varying degrees a little out of phase with the rest of God's™
universe. That is all there is to it really and there is
absolutely nothing to worry about, but if I were you I would
make sure that I have everything in order, and my will
witnessed and signed before the time comes for me to go
completely out-of-phase with the rest of God's™ universe...
- - - - - -
Uncle Dave rather enjoyed these pranks, so he went on for a
while longer repeating them here and there all over the
planet, scaring poor farmers in Kentucky one day, and a young
mechanical engineering student visiting his girl-friend in
Warminster the next, until he got fed up with it for a while,
but being the curious person that Uncle Dave was, he wanted to
know what would happen if he pedalled even faster.
He stopped for a minute or two to have another cup of tea,
then settled himself on Knumbum again, and pedalled like fury,
harder and faster than he had ever done before.
A very strange thing happened, which made him think that he
had cooked his goose this time.
No the contraption did not blow up.
- - - - - -
As Dave pedalled faster and faster, the contraption was going
further and further out-of-phase with the rest of God's™
universe, until he was at 90 degrees relative to it.
In other words, if he was, say, on the zero line; then the
rest of God's™ universe was at a maximum in the oscillation
cycle, on one side of the zero line or the other.
It just so happened that it was on the other, because Uncle
Dave was sitting back-to-front on Knumbum and pedalling in an
anti-clockwise direction; but this is totally irrelevant and I
am telling you here and now that you must forget I ever
mentioned it, in the same manner as a circuit judge in a court
of law might tell the jury to take an inadmissible comment
(carefully inserted by a clever barrister) out of their minds
completely, as though it was never uttered.
Uncle Dave noticed that the cows in the fields were becoming
heifers, and the trees shrinking to saplings, then into seed,
which these in turn disappeared altogether into the flowers of
a previous tree generation.
He also observed that the sky-scrapers were being replaced by
small brick buildings, and these into shacks, then grass huts,
which disappeared altogether, leaving nothing behind but empty
caves with gaping wide entrances and a green piece of land
round about, dotted by people with scruffy beards, wearing
sandals and CND badges, and drinking real-ale.
Great, thought Uncle Dave, he was now out of phase, not only
in three dimensions, but in the rather unfamiliar fourth
dimension also (otherwise known as time).
He was delighted, because until he actually managed to achieve
this remarkable feat, no one ever believed that it was
possible, and all the scientists who were working on the
subject, dropped it like a hot brick when our clever cleric
from Dublin University pronounced that he was in tune with
God's™ mind, Who told him that it was totally against His
wishes to play about with time, because, in the first place,
it was impossible to run against the flow of time, just as it
is impossible for a three-masted schooner to sail against the
wind; and because He thought if people started monkeying about
with time, then some of them might be tempted to go back and
shoot their grandparents dead, before their mums and dads were
born, which wouldn't be nice at all.
Uncle Dave knew better of course, because he was a dab hand at
sailing his small punt against the wind, by tacking, and
didn't have any worries at all about his grandparents.
He also came to the conclusion that he could in fact travel
backwards in time, without being in a position to mess up
history, by using the (imperfect) analogy of time, and life in
general, being like a film running forwards and showing events
on the screen. Therefore, chopping up or burning clips of the
film after it has been projected, could not in any way alter
any of the events that have already been shown on the screen.
He wasn't absolutely certain that this analogy was perfectly
valid, so he kept repeating it to himself, just as they do in
detergent advertisements, until he convinced himself that his
theory did actually wash whiter than any other product that
was available on the open market; and promptly headed in space
and time for the Gulf end of the Euphrates; where all the
really interesting things originated.
(If you have any doubt about the last parcel of real-truth,
then read Samuel Noah Kramer's book "History begins at Sumer"
and Seton Lloyd's book "The Archaeology of Mesopotamia", for a
spot of instant education)...
Strangely, and much to Uncle Dave's surprise, he noticed that
there was not a single oil well in sight at that end of the
Gulf, not even a single solitary Sports Jaguar costing a cool
220,000 pounds (honest) or even a bargain-basement Ferrari,
Merc, or BMW; instead, there were lots and lots of Sumerian
scribes with shaven heads, wearing lambskin kilts, sitting on
wooden stools, and writing holy (and original) stories on clay
tablets, with wooden styli.
They were writing (in cuniform of course - what else) about
Ziusudra, the hero of a devastating local flood which ruined a
dozen or so towns and villages, submerging many thousands of
hectares of grain and set-asides. They were also writing about
gods making universes and creating men in their own image, and
visiting them from outer space in strange circular glories,
which shine with a pearly aura.
Not having any idea that it was only Uncle Dave pratting about
in his machine, they wrote about a god in his glory in heaven,
prevailing upon them to provide free milk for children in
school (honest), which the blessed Maggie, in defiance of the
gods, snatched away from the kids, forty three centuries
later, and about making wheels, chariots of fire, hardening
bronze weapons, making simple batteries for electro-plating,
drawing maps, and about an astonishing number of other
inventions, though (thank heaven) not about making LED watches
which do not tell the time.
Whether it was out of the kindness of Uncle Dave's heart, or
because he wanted to show off a little bit, we don't know; at
any rate, he invited one of the Sumerian kings, a chap called
Etana (the thirteenth king of the first dynasty of Kish after
the Flood), for a ride in the contraption.
Uncle Dave took his majesty nearly as far away as the moon; so
when king Etana came back to earth, he never stopped telling
his subjects about the form of the earth and the shape of
cloud formations, and the rain-forests (whatever these were),
as seen from a very great altitude.
King Etana gave his cartographer sufficient detail to allow
him to draw a surprisingly accurate map of Etana's part of the
world (on a half-cubit square clay tablet), and ordered his
chief scribe to write the details of the Royal joy-ride into
space (in cuniform of course - what else) on a clay cylinder,
which the scribe baked afterwards, as was the custom in those
days for all important documents, to make them last for many
centuries; then posted the map and the cylinder to the British
Museum in London, where they reside to this day in a glazed
cabinet in the Western Asiatic Section (Room 62), thus joining
their brother cylinders and sister tablets and other mementos
like that, in glazed cabinets, on the floor, and in the ample
basement of the Museum (honest)...
- - - - - -
Those ancient Sumerians took Uncle Dave and his contraption so
seriously, that the silly fools went and built stepped and
truncated pyramids (or Ziggurats, as they called them), and
finished the top with an empty room, where they placed roast
beef and boiled potatoes, and gallons and gallons of sweet tea
(Uncle Dave's favourite nourishment), in gratitude for all the
secondary school science that he taught them, and for the
sagas which he read to them from a small pocket encyclopaedia,
which he happened to have with him at the time.
Uncle Dave enjoyed their attentions for a time, but soon got
worried about missing his tea back home, so he reversed the
pedals, re-adjusted Knumbum, then pedalled (clockwise) until
he arrived back in his proper time, without saying goodbye to
his generous hosts.
The Sumerians, and the Akkadians after them, went on building
Ziggurats for many centuries afterwards, and kept leaving the
food and drink on a holy table in the little rooms on top of
the Ziggurats (or holy-of-holies, as they called these little
rooms, because they thought Uncle Dave was Big-G Himself),
even though they never saw hide nor heel of Uncle Dave or his
contraption ever again, though they knew of others who did.
- - - - - -
On his return home, Uncle Dave was greeted by his partner, who
opened the door of the huge garage to tell him off (in no
uncertain terms); and to point out to him that it did not
escape her notice just how convenient it was for him to
disappear into the garage, pretending to be busy copying disk
magazines for ungrateful punters, whenever it was his turn to
do the washing up.
The following day when Uncle Dave returned home from the job
centre in Peterborough, where he had his daily counselling,
which was administered by a serious looking young person, on
how to spend his permanent leisure time (since leaving
school), whilst at one and the same time being available for
work (or a placement on a youth training course), when a
suitable vacancy occurs in a car-wash on a planet nearby; he
found that his missus had given his contraption away to a rich
rag-and-bone man in exchange for a new washing up bowl.
God™, who never interferes in the domestic affairs of any of
His creatures was, nevertheless, very cross with Uncle Dave
(because he wouldn't do the washing up), so He declared the
silly episode of creating Uncle Dave, a humourless joke.
- - - - - -
Chapter 8
Despite all the discouraging flops that God™ suffered, He
would not go back on what He had perpetrated, though He did
improve His method of assembly and quality control procedures
during His Sumerian, Akkadian, Chaldean, Amorite and Assyrian
periods, where He achieved some very remarkable results, which
was very good news for the human race indeed.
(Remind me to tell you something about them later).
Unfortunately, those periods did not last very long, and He
soon reverted to using second-hand bits, that kept falling off
brand new green Skodas, for creating the rest of humanity.
God™ did not have any problems with making arms and legs and
lungs and kidneys and other simple bits and pieces like that.
The difficulty was in producing brains of a useful size that
would fit into the billions of the rather small bone boxes,
that He had already mass-produced in Taiwan, and did not want
to throw them all away and start all over again from scratch,
for where was the money to come from dear ?
So He crammed the soggy stuff into the bone boxes, and that is
why it looks all wrinkled when you take it out of the box, but
I wouldn't do that if I were you, because it is the devil of a
job trying to squeeze it all back in again.
God™ wanted the brains to have some kind of an operating
procedure, but this wasn't easy because He made the brains out
of Mire Soft - Dirty Old Seaweed, but after four and a half
attempts He managed a workable system which He promptly dubbed
MS-DOS 4.5 (for very obvious reasons).
This creation remained unsurpassed until a fresh supply of
MOSFETs, EPROMs, 486 Putrid Cheeses (or PC for short) and,
best of all, 68,030 Tiny-Tot boxes of turkish delight came on
the market, which He named TT because He was tea-total.
God™ organised the brain into tracks and sectors with little
bits and pieces, and nibbles and bytes for extra confusion,
and decided to make 1 and 0 equal 16 to baffle the decimal and
binary experts, and created what He jokingly called PAGE-6
into which the memory drifts (to make a mess of things) then
crash-lands and absolutely refuses to drift out again, unless
the reset button is pressed, which can be very painful on a
cold winter morning.
He made the brain work by having a little foul-mouthed scanner
(that is why He called it a cursor) to flit across the memory
cells backwards and forwards non stop.
During waking hours, and in the absence of gin, dioxin, or the
Financial Times, the cursor is more or less under effective
control of the brain.
The brain may, from time to time, instruct the cursor to
search for small parcels of memory that it had stored in small
cells, and on chips preserved in salt and vinegar, when it
wants to have another look at these parcels; even if it is
often not a very pretty sight.
Some of these memory cells are in constant demand, so the
cursor knows them like the back of its hand, and has no
difficulty at all in locating and recognising; such as the
smell of bad feet, the last set of exam results, or being
reminded of a thoughtless remark you made to your partner, on
a dark Tuesday afternoon, twelve years ago last April.
Another example of continuous usage, is the complicated set of
instructions for the articulation of the muscles of the right
arm to lift a cup of tea from the saucer to the mouth and vice
versa; as well as other vital operations like that.
There are also some standing orders for certain procedures,
which the cursor can perform without any prompting, such as
making all sorts of chemical substances for the body to use;
with or without official approval.
There are a number of other standing order mandates for the
cursor to obey without further instructions. These are
necessary to control the opening and closing of certain valves
in the body of its rightful owner; otherwise the function of
the heart, kidneys, lungs and bladder for example, would be
tricky and very erratic, and therefore eating and drinking
would have very messy consequences.
This mode of operation is also useful for automatically
standing up when a lady enters the room, or politely giving up
your seat when an age-challenged person enters the bus or the
train in which you are travelling (though this reaction can
easily be suppressed with practice), and for co-ordinating the
leg muscles when riding a bicycle half-asleep on the pavement
(as most cyclists do), and for members of Parliament who,
after years of practice, can make speeches, cry 'ear 'ear and
cast their carefully considered votes for their party, even
though they are fast asleep on the benches.
The most fascinating aspect of the cursor, however, is when it
is not under full control of the brain; such as when the brain
had put its pyjamas on and gone to bed, or if it should come
under the influence of anti-freeze or Austrian white wine (to
name but one - allegedly).
In these circumstances, the cursor prowls around in all the
dark corners and narrow alleyways of the brain, moving from
one tucked away parcel of memory to another, without any
restriction, and being the cursed sod that it is, it projects
these images in any sequence it fancies, into the sleepy head
of the rightful owner of the brain.
These take the form of all sorts of fantasies, which some
people call manic hallucinations and others call them economic
miracles and prudent government policies.
Sometimes, these images occur even when the brain isn't asleep
in bed, but apparently sitting bolt upright and fully awake.
Indeed, some of these images can be so real, that many people
swear blind that they have seen Omar il Khayyam in a top-hat,
stabbing Volvo drivers with a loaded Kalashnikov, from the
saddle of a Honda VFR-750 cruising at 152 miles an hour, on
the Salzburg to Vienna Autobahn, whilst cracking walnuts with
his toes, blowing an E-flat major french horn (without
valves), and at the same time reading one of his Rubaiyats.
Many licensed and unlicensed experts have been making huge
fortunes from interpreting these real-life occurrences, in
lunatic asylums and in the Ministry of One Arm Bandits.
God™ decided to call the licensed variety psychiatrists; and
the unlicensed ones, who threaten you with a curse if you
don't cross their palms with silver, He called tax collectors.
- - - - - -
This Epistle should convince you that God™ went to a great
deal of trouble in creating this neat and tidy Universe, so
the least you can do is to go down on your knees, or touch the
ground with your forehead, or put your palms together and nod
in respect, or take time to write the history of the universe
(His best known work) and send it to your favourite diskzine.
Happy re-incarnation and a prosperous 4004 BC ZB
