Globally Loved Sports Britain Does Not Care About

Sumo
The National Sport Of: Japan

My immediate thought is of Asians in fat suits running at each other and then falling over, because my mind has been utterly tainted by hours of watching Takeshi’s Castle repeats on TV. And whilst the utterly cruel Jap version of ‘It’s A Knockout’ may have a rubbish closing round and is dubbed by the unfunny Craig Charles, it manages to knock ten spots off the sport is sometimes likes to emulate. Where the appeal lies in sumo is a mystery matched only by that of people who sunbathe (what’s up with that? Where’s the fun?) or the strange disappearance of Snoopy from our TV screens. The sport doesn’t appear to have much technical merit and there’s seemingly little skill involved, and yet it has managed to become seen as a dignified and sophisticated sport. In short, it appears to have reached a level of admiration which the technicalities of the event don’t match up to. Of course, maybe when I do some more of that fabled Wilftonville “research” the sport will change my mind, but as it stands at the moment sumo wrestling seems even less worthy than clock solitaire.


What Is It?

Focusing on professional sumo, the sport is an insanely controlled and regimented way of life for many Japanese men. There’s a lot of money available, but at the same time the average life expectancy of the average sumo wrestler appears to be in the low 60s. In other words, it is the male equivalent of forced prostitution, given what I know of American romantic comedies. Sumo is contested between two different fighters, who wear nothing apart from a gigantic napkin round their waists to hide their jewels when they enter the arena. Said arena has a small stage in the centre where the bouts take place, and the idea is that the two wrestlers enter this circular stage and fight. They are only allowed to push each other, though (no kicking to the face, although that would be infinitely more amusing), and whichever of them pushes their opponent out of the circle or to the floor first is declared the winner. It’s that simple.

And most of Japanese society is based upon the spiritual purity afforded by sumo wrestling. For comparison, imagine if Britain or America respectively centred their cultural and social lifestyle on boxing and WWE wrestling. Oh, and also the Japanese religion, Shinto, is somehow connected to it as well. Although the sound of an overweight Jesus with boxing gloves, crown of thorns and lycra shorts does sound like a surefire crowd-pleaser, something tells me the western world would never accept it. Just to clarify: sumo wrestling is sort of religious. And you thought those little Jewish hats were silly!

But if we could get away from ridiculing religions (stop pushing me into slander, readers!) I’d like to have a little deeper look into sumo. Because heck – this blog is unlikely to ever cover this ‘sport’ again, so we may as well say everything we want to now, while we still have the opportunity. Sumo wrestling is possibly one of the strangest sports ever, in that the main activity itself is straightforward, but the lifestyle appears to be batshit crazy. For a start, all sumo wrestlers are a part of a stable, who look after them. When they are young they train up in the stable with their fellow wannabe sumo wrestlers, and it appears they are used as mini-slaves by the stable-owners. The Sumo Association also have a strict set of rules for their players which must be obeyed – Wikipedia (as ever, the main source for Wilftonville’s research. And, uh, the only) says that among other things, sumo wrestlers aren’t allowed to drive cars because once a sumo wrestler crashed his car and… well, died. So now no sumo wrestlers can drive. Don’t forget that this is one of the only sports in the world apart from darts which encourages participants to be fat and unhealthy, too! The main drink for a training sumo wrestler is alcohol. Why? Well… because.


Why Doesn’t Britain Care?

The first reason Britain doesn’t give two shakes of a pimp cane about probably has something to do with the aforementioned batshit craziness of the lifestyle, although a greater reason is probably the health-conscious nature of society. Fat children are shunned and the papers cry openly about the loss of exercise and fitness in the future generations. Sumo simply wouldn’t be accepted as a valid excuse for kids to eat as much as they want. The second reason is that Britain is a completely open society – too open, at times – and if sumo wrestling became massively popular it wouldn’t be too long until the women would start demanding to take part, too. Who on earth would want to see that? The idea of two fat British women wrestling each other while wearing tank-tops is physically and morally wrong, although knowing the general readership of this blog you probably all just got aroused. For shame, internet hordes.

One last point. It’d be really, really mean to force the geeky kids to take part in sumo wrestling in PE! Sumo wrestling gives a sense of worth to fat kids and those who are tall or well-built. In other words: the sporty kids. They already hold a monopoly on all the real sports – imagine their glee if they were put in a ring with a small asthmatic kid and told to throw them out. Personally, nothing fills me with hatred more than the glee of a successful person. Sumo wrestling should never become a part of British society.

Making Up Jokes About Barack Obama

Generally Wilftonville stays out of American politics because we don’t approve of living in an America-centric universe. There are other countries, and the majority of them are way better than America is. Or at least, more consistent in their beliefs. Walk from one state to another in America and you’ll find that whereas your Jesus-ignoring, ethnic-approving, gay-marriage supporting self is highly beloved in the one, your beliefs will cause the residents of the other to actually hunt you down with pitchforks. America is an odd country. Racists live next to liberals, and one of the largest states is run by an Austrian. And on top of all this, they drive on the wrong side of the road (what UP, Australia?)

However, seeing as there is only one new president every four years in America unless the current president is a republican, it’s worth looking into this “Obama” feller to see what’s really going on. Barack Obama, in case you were unaware, is not completely white. In fact, there is a whole half of him which could be described as “not white”. This is quite the turn-up for the books, because everyone outside of America assumed that all states were racist. It turns out that the USA happens to be startlingly not prejudiced anymore (nobody would call it liberal, yet, but it does seem to be heading that way, which is pleasing) and ready for “change”. And “hope”. Because that’s what Obama was promising. During the five-year election process he has constantly referred back to these two words as part of his platform, and they’ve worked out for him far better than Hilary Clinton’s “woman” and “sexism” words or John McCain’s use of “POW” and “necktie”. Why he thinks that quoting a form of Batman attack will help him in politics is anyone’s guess, as everyone knows what happens when politicians get involved with the Caped Crusader.

Pictured: A Fool.

It’s clear from his speeches that Barack Obama is an eloquent individual, and as this is unheard of for a politician the media have decided to jump on this and proclaim him to be the resurrected body of Jesus, which will annoy all deluded Christians (Jesus was white! They shout) and force all Rastafarians to smoke more. Well, perhaps the media aren’t that obsessed with him, but they do seem to think that there is nothing about the man which is mockable at all. Previous President George Bush was an international laughing stock (although we all laughed as quietly as possible, in case he tried to bomb us) and of all the other World leaders – Berlusconi, Brown, and so on – only Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy seem to be seen as genuinely decent at their job. Sarkozy, being French, doesn’t have to do much to impress anyone but Obama is in charge of a country which everyone can admit is pretty darned important. And it looks, at this point in time, like he’s going to do a good job.

This is great for America – good luck with everything, and all – but it does mean that it’s damnably hard to think up any good jokes about the man. He’s dignified and clever, but also witty and seems approachable to the average person. Where’s the humour in that? When you add to our woes with the simple truth that Obama is black, it means that it’s going to be seriously tough to say any jokes about him without coming off as a racist. Or ironic. It’s a massive problem which has been mentioned all around the World by many different comedians as something which they struggle with – Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Marcus Brigstocke, among others have all worried that there are no good Obama jokes around.

There are many solutions to this problem, but because this is a blog we’ll only talk about the least obvious and most convoluted one: we have to start making up stuff about Barack. For example, did you know the following facts about Barack are all absolutely true?

1. At college he studied drama.
2. His favourite kind of animal is the llama.
3. He has no tolerance for a self-harmer.
4. My Name Is Earl is his favourite show, because it’s all about karma.

With these four facts in our possession, we can start arranging jokes based about Obama which will be hilarious. Let’s try one on, based on those four facts:

“Knock Knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Barack”
“Barack who?”
“I’m Barack from watching My Name Is Earl!!!!”

On top of this absolutely stupefying jubilant joke, nobody has yet realised that Obama’s initials are “BO”. Did you know that “BO” is also the abbreviation for ‘body odour’? Because it is! What a superb joke you could make from that, comedians of the world! We don’t stop here either, as Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. That means that any Hawaii 5-O jokes you might have are applicable to him! Yes! Can’t you see? There is so much on offer for you here, and you don’t even realise it yet. This is just the beginning. Do you know any good jokes that could be made up about Barack Obama, America’s forty-somethingth President? Write them in the comments section below, and let’s see if we can’t build up a collection for later use.

And who knows? Perhaps he’ll shatter the American economy and ruin the country. What a great day for jokesters that’ll be!

Why I Don’t Trust The Jews

A lot of Americans recently believed that Barack Obama was a Muslim, and that because of this he shouldn’t be allowed to become the awesome new President of the USA (or as we call it in Europe, ‘Disneyland’). This Islamophobia is not something that the Americans alone are guilty of, though – Britain seems to be obsessed with it. At least, the papers are. Every day the worthless newspapers spread panic about how the Muslims are going to take over all our jobs because;

A: They are ASYLUM SEEKERS. Agh! Asylum seekers!
B: They are trying to destroy the very fabric of British society which first enticed them to migrate over here
C: (They do the jobs better than British workers do)

Option C is not one you’ll see the papers mention very often. We’re not too bad though, overall, just as long as you don’t visit Bradford. Ever. In the Middle-East, I’m led to believe that apparently the Muslims are getting into wars with each other and other religions! That’s quite extreme indeed. It seems that The Muslims are not appreciated properly by the World. I sympathise with you, Muslim community.

At the same time the Christians are under attack from that Dawkins feller. He doesn’t think that people should base their lives around the writing of one book, and if you read his ‘The God Delusion’, available at many good book stores, he will advise you on how best to live your life away from the glare of religion. Mostly, he is not happy with Catholics. And why should he be? Those people have been going away once a week to those sinister-looking church buildings for years and years now. They’ve got something in mind, heed my words, and for centuries now they’ve been planning it for two or so hours a week. Also, they don’t like abortions – what kind of weirdo doesn’t love a good abortion?

But I’m not here to talk about the faults of Catholics and Muslims and Atheists. I’m here to talk about the real issues. I always have been, in a way. It’s just that you’ve never understood before what my posts about ‘X-Men’ and ‘How To Get Famous Women To Sleep With You’ were really about. They’re allegorical! I think that the main problem with society today is that it is doing too much worrying about Catholics and Muslims, and not enough worrying about Jews.

For one thing, did you know that all female Jews are surgically modified when they reach a certain age? The process is called a Bat-Mitzvah, and during it the girls are given a pair of wings to use, and an inbuilt sonar system. With these powers the girls then are able to fly around at night, drinking the blood of cows and peasants. Why isn’t the media reporting this?

It doesn’t end there. One thing that’s been bothering me for quite some time are the hats that Jews wear. These hats are sanctioned whenever they go into their place of worship, and you will not see a Jew in a synagogue without one. Nobody else seems to realise that these hats are resistant to telepathic intrusion, which means that the giant satellites the Government have in space are unable to read the minds of Jews once they start worshipping. There is a mental black spot above and around each Synagogue. What is it that the Jews see or think about in Synagogue that they need to keep secret from the rest of the World? Why isn’t the media reporting this?

And finally, the thing most Jews are known for: their fame. It’s long been known that Hollywood is run by Jews, gays, and Jewish gays (who have the most power of all), and that they use their power to influence the country. They have control over the entire population of California, for one thing (not the gays: they just suspiciously lost their ability to marry recently – another Jewish plot?), and their expansion is slowly taking over the rest of the two US coastlines. They have taken over the film industry, the TV industry, the music industry, and the media. Why isn’t the media repor- oh.

Jewish people must be stopped.

The Next Messiah

Hey, everyone. This is, uh, God. I was watching from up here where I live, and gosh, but all of you seem to be just so silly at the moment! You are stuck in the middle of all these wars with the strong countries attacking the weak ones, and the weak countries attacking the other weak countries, and then some countries aren’t fighting anyone at all… and they’re being told off for it! But I don’t want to get stuck on that whole ‘war’ issue (could go on for ever!) when there are other things crossing my mind at the moment. But, while I am here – what’s with all that war? Really? Do you have to?

Alright, I’m sorry, I got a little off-point for a minute there. You’re wondering now, why would I ever come back to Earth now and talk to you, when there are literally billions of other planets I have to focus on, being the Almighty and all. The problem is that no other planet that I’m in control of (I’ve all but given up on Tyl, in honesty. I think it’s just better to leave them to it at this point. You can’t win everything!) is annoying me quite so much. Not annoying, as such. I don’t get annoyed, I don’t think. In fact, I don’t think at all – one of the abilities that comes with having created the logic of thought. I just don’t have to think! Makes life much easier. So anyway, can’t really explain any of this, and I don’t mean to be patronising when I say that I can’t explain it – but quite literally, your brain will not understand what it is about Earth that is making me write this now. The part of your brain which you aren’t using is the part that would comprehend this.

Sorry for getting technical. And sorry for apologising all the time! I’ll get to the point, I think, before I start getting myself all tangled up. Basically, I’ve been sending you Messiahs since like forever, and yet you haven’t been paying attention. I’m not going to name any of them, obviously, because that’s not my job. That’s what they’re supposed to do. If I were to go about naming who was a Messiah and who wasn’t, then you’re going to start crowing about whose religion was right and whose wasn’t. I don’t want any of that! So right, let’s get on with the point. I keep getting sidetracked.

Y’know, just so we’re clear on things? There is no correct religion. There are correct beliefs, because if you were to think “oh, God has blue fur” for example, and I do actually have blue fur, then that’s a correct belief you have. If you start having a religion going on there, then what’s that all about? You’re just starting things up based on the beliefs. But facts… you can’t take facts and then create rituals based on them! It’s just…. Oh, how silly and everything. I get confused just trying to think about it. But that’s another diversion. The point, yeah.

So these Messiahs I’ve been sending you. They don’t seem to be getting through! It is so silly! I couldn’t understand what was going on, really I couldn’t. But just recently, it suddenly dawned on me that you aren’t able to converse with tadpoles and ferrets. That’s where I’ve been going wrong all these years! You see, the Messiahs I tend to send down to Earth in order to explain who I am and what I like (meaning of life? Pff! Do what you want, so long as it’s nice! I created life, what kind of meaning do you need?) have thus far been less human than you’d think. Every single parrot in the Southern Hemisphere is aware of what’s going on round here, but because I haven’t sent any humans down in, oh, ages, you all seem to have forgotten. Meanwhile, the crabs are strutting around like they own the place, because I’ve sent them a Messiah. It’s something you’ll have to work round.

I totally have plans for sending another human Messiah at some point in the future! I just haven’t got round to it yet. It takes a lot out of me, you need to realise, and sending one at a time is tiring enough. Sending out multiple Messiahs is just not on the cards right now There’s a queue, too, so when I put you in there, you have to be prepared for the wait. That’s going to happen. So for the moment, nothing’s going to be coming your way. I hope you don’t mind, but even if you do mind nothing’s going to happen.

What I’m saying is… be patient. Or go learn how to speak Kestrel, because that’s what the current Messiah is.

Me Bless,

God.


PS: I used this blog as a way of getting the message across, because I like to support an underdog. Thought you might be wondering about that one!

God's Five Most Dick Moves (Part 5)

5: Halting The Tower Of Babel

Once upon a time, God got really annoyed with everyone on Earth, so he killed them. A master of genocide, God decided that a flood would be the best thing for the job, so he picked the one man he did like (Noah, in case you haven’t already guessed) and told him to build an ark, and fill it with all the animals on earth – but only two of each kind. With that built, God made it rain so much that everyone was drowned apart from the people on the ark (we presume that unicorns were left off the guest-list), and Noah was stranded out on his own for a while. Once the floods subsided and the world was probably strewn with the millions of animal corpses that had drowned along with the humans, he touched down and founded a new city, where new people would live.

From Noah’s family grew the foundations of a city, where everything would be nice again. But oh wait, we’ve been here before, and it never ends well. The people of Babylon, this new city, decided to unite together in the spirit of achievement and harmony, and create a tower so high it could ‘touch heaven’. It's fair to say that God did not like this idea.

So What Did God Do?

Well according to sources, it seems that he knocked it down with a big gust of wind. The Bible doesn’t specify this, but seeing how the Tower doesn’t exist anymore, it’s a fair guess that God pushed it over, likely crushing the hundreds of people who lived in the shadow of the thing. His reason for this was that he didn’t like the idea of humans building something just for the sake of showing off their ability to be good, when they should have been praising him instead. This seems a little petty, again, when you consider it. God created mankind in order to spread his glory across… a planet he created and populated himself (God must have self-doubt issues, it seems), but as soon as they show off their creativity and ability to create amazing works of art, he strikes it down. That’s hypocritical at best, and at worst... it's a dick move on his part.

God doesn’t stop with destroying the tower though. His first move in actuality was to scatter all the people who had worked on the tower across the globe, and in the process creating several different languages so nobody would be able to talk to each other anymore. This is the reason why, when you go on holiday to Bordeaux and ask someone for directions, you get a smirk and a “ah, you eez eeennglish, non?” in your face. God did that. In the process, he effectively created the concept of war, xenophobia, racism, all of that, because whereas before everyone was friendly with each other, now we had a whole host of different races and languages walking around, causing friction with each other.

Result:

The people of the World have to suffer war, racism, and - worst of all – The Eurovision Song Contest. What, never heard of a metaphor, God? Did you actually think the builders planned to touch Heaven with their tower? Heck, we STILL haven’t managed to build something that tall, even with computers and metals and alloys and stuff, so why did you think the ancient people would be able to? We think perhaps you had too much confidence in these folk, m’Lord…

God's Five Most Dick Moves (Part 4)

4: Killing Moses

Once Moses saved his people from slavery, he realised that he didn’t really know what he was doing or where to go. In essence, they were all trapped in the middle of a desert. Before his people got wind of this and started ironically congratulating him for his heroism, he got on the mystic phone to God and asked for directions, which God gave him. From then on, Moses was guided through the deserts for forty years by the Almighty, who also provided them all with food and water, like a good creator should. All this time, Moses was a good leader, and God gave him ten commandments for the Israelites that Moses told them to obey, and everything seemed like it was going just fine and dandy. However, Moses made the mistake of being impatient. God told him that if he were to bang his staff on a rock, water would flow for the people to drink, so Moses did so. When water didn’t flow out immediately, he hit it again. Mistake!

So What Did God Do?

God took Moses to one side and told him that after all the effort he had gone through to guide the Israelites through the desert, where they had been struck by plagues and attacked by other armies and groups that they had encountered, he wasn’t going to be allowed to make it to the end. No, because Moses had been impatient that one time, God decided that the poor feller would die just before everyone got there. let’s just clarify this: Moses has done everything that God has told him to for most of his life (and what a life: the guy lives to be about 120 years old), follows the big guy blindly through deserts – freakin’ DESERTS – for decades, and then at the end of it all, he’s denied the chance to have a happy ending because he hits a rock twice instead of once.

To rub salt into the wound, God tells Moses that he’s going to die before it actually happens, thus giving the old geezer a probable heart attack. From there on in, we imagine he probably wasn’t as happy as he was at the beginning of the adventure. He was almost certainly going to be less adventurous, knowing that at any minute God might snuff his lights out. Eventually, Moses is told that it’s his time, so he gives a big speech to his people and then wanders off to die.

Result:

Doesn’t quite end there, actually. God must’ve been feeling a little petty or something, because when Moses wanders off to the top of a hill to die, it just so happens to be a hill that overlooks Israel – or as we call it, THE PLACE MOSES WILL NEVER GET TO LIVE IN. Yes, one last twist of the knife as Moses looks out and gets the chance to experience the pain every contestant on Bullseye must ever have felt when he got to “see what you could’ve won”. And then, only after Moses is feeling totally depressed, does God finally kill him and take him up to Heaven. What a tease.

God's Five Most Dick Moves (Part 3)

3: Subjecting Egypt to Ten Plagues

Egypt, as anyone who has ever been on holiday there will know, is a hot place, filled with geographical wonders, but still: hot place. Despite this, a lot of important people seem to have come from there in the past, and chief among those was Moses. Moses, in the words of Ron Burgundy, is a pretty big deal. He’s basically the saviour of his people, the Israelites, who are God’s favourite people. Once he finds out that he is the saviour of the people (he was told so by a burning bush, typically) he asks the Pharaoh of Egypt permission to take his people out of the country, where they are used as slaves, so they can observe a religious holiday. Pharaoh turns them down, apparently all too happy to continue letting the Israelites build some pyramids and fancy crap for him. Moses complains to God, who decides that he’s going to get involved personally.

So What Did God Do?

God sent down ten plagues to Egypt in order to convince the Pharaoh to “let his people go!” He starts off by turning all the water into blood, which kills all the fishes that were quite happily swimming around in the nearby lakes, not to mention makes the town smell a bit yucky. God then continues to plague the place, sending in frogs, lice, and flies into Egypt in order to really freak out the people who live there. It’s probably worth noting at this point that God doesn’t make any concessions with his plagues – the first three all hit the Israelites as hard as they do the Egyptians. And also: the Egyptians aren’t actually doing much wrong, here. They tolerate slavery, but on the other hand slavery isn’t abolished from most of the world for another few thousand years, so you can’t really blame them for that. To compare this to modern times, imagine God making all our livestock diseased because of Tony Blair’s agenda in Iraq. It doesn’t affect Tony that much, but it sure as hell annoys the living tar out of everyone else! Oh wait, mad cow disease. Hmm.

God, of course, is not finished yet. He plagues the Egyptians (finally realising that perhaps hurting the Israelites isn’t helping his cause much) with boils, and then drops hail/firebombs on them, before following up with some locusts. To finish things off, he plunges the town into darkness, which presumably didn’t help their tourism industry. But why didn’t the Pharaoh give in? Well, there’s evidence within the Torah (and perhaps the Bible, but who in their right mind would ever read that clichéd trash?) that God hardens Pharaoh's heart so that he cannot feel any emotion for his people. You heard that right – God purposely makes it so that nobody will stop his plagues, because he wants to show off his power. I’m not even taking that out of context. And then, of course, he goes a little too far and kills off the first-born son of all the Egyptians.

Result:

What do you bloody think? Pharaoh lets the Israelites go! Although having been played around by God, he then gets mad and chases after them, only to be drowned when God drops a sea on him. Sucks to be you, dude.

God's Five Most Dick Moves (Part 2)

2: Telling Abraham to Kill His Son

We’ve moved forward in time now, to a guy called Abraham who has two children, Ishmael and Isaac. While Ishmael moves on to be the ancestor of the Muslims, Isaac turns out to be the ancestor of the Jews/Christians. Pretty strong family there, eh? Yes, Abraham has it all. A wife, two children who between them are going to create two ½ religions that will be the reason behind almost every single war mankind has, and he’s not doing too badly in life. His sons both grow up to be about thirty before Abraham gets taken aside by God, who wants to ask him for “a little favour”…

So What Did God Do?

He only goes and tells Abraham to kill his son! That’s right, it turns out that God is feeling a little insecure in his role as grand leader and creator of everything, and thinks that the only way he can regain his self-confidence is if he can persuade one of the humans he created to go and kill his own son. And Abraham, like a schmuck, agrees. He takes Isaac by the hand and leads him slowly up a hill, presumably without having mentioned the ritual sacrifice that is going to be a big part of the kid’s future. Or, in fact, the end of it. Isaac is about thirty according to the different gospels at this point, so the fact he follows his father is probably because he thinks something important is about to happen. How little he knows!

In the gospel itself, Isaac keeps asking his dad where the animal that’s going to be sacrificed is, and Abraham keeps saying to him that “God will find one”. How cruel is Abraham? The fact that God is willing to capitalise on the fact that Isaac’s dad is a prick only goes to show how much of a dick move this is on his part, because when Abraham finally turns round and prepares to stab his son, he sends an angel down to say “no, don’t bother – God’s changed his mind.” So… this is all an elaborate prank, it seems. God wasn’t in denial at all, he was just feeling bored and wanted to mess around with something.

Result:

Abraham and Isaac have the most awkward conversation in history as they walk back down the hill. And seeing how Abraham forced Isaac to carry the sacrificial wood up the hill, I imagine Isaac wouldn’t have been too keen on bringing it back down again for father dearest. The resulting conversation between Abraham and his wife Sarah can’t have been a picnic either.

God’s Five Most Dick Moves (as retold by humans)

Anyone who believes in God can generally agree that he’s done some flipping amazing things over the past few years. This is a being who has not only created the World, the Solar System and… well, the Universe at large, but also lets us pretty much do whatever we want with it. Yet sometimes he feels that he has to get involved. He feels like he needs to interrupt the fun that humans are having and replace it with some Hard Moral Lessons. It’s at these moments when we realise that God might not be such a good guy after all. In fact, looking back over the different pieces of literature that have been written about him, he comes off as a bit of a dick, actually. Prove it, you ask? Well since you ask so kindly…


1: Allowing The Fall Of Humanity To Happen

God had set up Eden, a new world where his creations ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’ could frolic around and have a marvellous time, playing with animals (which may or may not have included talking unicorns) and singing a lot. It seems that Eden was a paradise as such, where nobody went hungry or got ill or ever hurt themselves, and the only problem that anyone ever had was deciding which of the animals they should eat next. Adam and Eve were allowed to live here so long as they didn’t eat any fruit from the intriguingly named ‘Tree Of Knowledge’, because if that happened they would die. But then Satan snuck in through the back door dressed up as a snake, and things went downhill somewhat for our plucky heroes.

So What Did God Do?

He set the whole thing up! Firstly he calls the forbidden fruit “the forbidden fruit”, which practically begs for someone to eat it. Secondly, God hasn’t told Adam or Eve what this ‘death’ actually is. They’ve never seen anything die before, because everything in Eden regenerates whenever it gets injured or eaten or partially blown up or whatever, so telling them that eating the fruit will lead to their imminent death isn’t really going to worry them too much. As if this weren’t enough, he lets Satan into the garden.

Yes, the very same Satan who has a grudge against God and has previously announced his intentions to bugger things up as much as he can for the big guy. God actively lets this guy into the garden, and when he sees Eve get corrupted and walk over to the Tree Of Knowledge does he throw down a thunderbolt to stop her, and frazzle the talking snake of evil? No, no he does not. He sits on his throne and lets the whole thing happen.

Result:

Once both his humans have become aware of the fact that they’re, like, totally naked and stuff, God sends Jesus down to throw ‘em out of Eden, because he can’t be bothered. He sentences snakes to a lifetime of crawling around on their bellies… which seems a bit harsh considering they weren’t really responsible for Satan taking their form. He then decides that Adam will have to work the rest of his life, and thus suffer from the exhaustion that brings. Oh, and he decrees that from now on all women are going to suffer agonising pain during childbirth, for good measure. Way to overreact there, God.

Some Fab New Areas That Hell Has Just Revamped

The last time IEF went to go visit Hell for a while, there were nine different circles going on with all different people in them, having not fun times with fire and ice and snakes and boiling lava and stuff all putting them in pain. It isn’t the best place to go visit, but we were commissioned to take the piss out of the sinners, and a paycheque’s a paycheck, folks. Who are we to turn money down? We got asked to return last year for a bit, and were offered an even bigger cheque this time round. Y’know why? Because they’ve done some refurbishment since we were last there, and they’ve added a whole new set of circles to go on top of the nine that are already there. Limbo’s been got rid of, and so Circle 1 is now home to a group of punishments which are known as “the kinda harsh tortures”. They established nine more groups of people that they thought needed to get some torture done to them, and they now live in the first circle of Hell. Here they are.


Sat in a room with no natural light source, the people who turn the light on when they enter a room even when the light doesn’t need to be on are forced to read aloud novels by James Joyce, straining their eyes terribly in the process. Once they finish each book, they are sent into the room of enlightenment, where they must stare unblinking at a fluorescent light for a period of time decided by their guards.

A set of low-rent flats house many sinners, who must live out their lives from their room whilst hell-demons and devils have noisy sex in the room next to them, the werewolf above their room jumps around every night making wolf-noises, and vampires listen to their goth-metal music really loudly in the room below them. For these are the bad neighbours, who made earth a hell for the people who lives next to them, and they will pay for their inconsiderateness.

The people who dress up their pets and children as if they were adults live nearby, where their punishment is to eternally try to clothe a sabre-toothed tiger whilst it is still alive. Whenever they attempt to dress the animal up in clothes, it will maul at them and rip them to pieces, only for them to be reincarnated at the end of each day to try and fail again.

In the lake of pity, a giant fish slaps the vegetarians who for some reason think that it’s okay to eat fish repeatedly, in the face, with his tail tearing their skin off with the sandpaper-like scales that adorn its body. However, whenever the fish tires, pigs and cows and sheep will come and sooth the wounds of these sinners, even though they are pretty hypocritical.

In punishment for their haste, the motorcyclists who don’t follow the laws of driving have to walk forevermore down the wrong way of a motorway, heading to Hull. As they go many of the cars will clip them or run over their feet. Whenever they get close to their final destination a car will pull out and drive onto the hard shoulder illegally, skip some traffic lights, overtake a car they shouldn’t, and hit the motorcyclists, sending them flying back to the beginning, where they must start the journey again.

In the supermarket of hell (Tesco), many women will have to wait in line for the check-out for years on end without being allowed to put down their heavy shopping baskets, thus causing their arms enormous pain. When they do get past the checkout, their bags will break and they will have to go through the whole process again. This is the punishment of the women who get to the end of a checkout without having already got out their cards and money ready to pay for their shipping who then start looking through their handbags for them and waste everyone else’s time.

Although unused as of yet, there is a small amphitheatre built in this circle of hell which will soon house all of the dull singer/songwriters who thought that by making boring music they can appeal to the mass market of teenage girls who fancy them, where they will have to listen to each other perform in concert.

The final area of this new revamp of the first circle of hell is for fat people. This place has no connection to those who are glutinous, instead serving as a giant fitness centre where fat people will have to train incessantly whilst a tray of tantalising cakes sits nearby. Whenever they stop their cardio workout to head towards the cakes, the cakes will morph into ferocious elephants that will grab the fat people and use them as a bowling ball down an alleyway of fire, before they hit the pins made of pure electricity. Then they have to get back to work before boxercise starts. It turns out, you see, that nobody likes fat people.

So those are the new additions to hell, which shows no sign of losing any of the horrific charm which has kept it the only place for sinners to go when they die. They promise to add even more areas soon, and I’ve been told to come back and see them ‘up close’ in 62 years, which seems awfully precise, actually, now I think about it…

Saints What Are Rubbish

Saint Himelin

His Story
Saint Himelin was a Scottish Priest who went on a pilgrimage to Rome in 750 AD and made it all the way there intact. Sadly, he fell ill when he set off back home and got as far as Belgium before the illness started to really get him bad. Staggering around, he went up to a girl and asked her for some water to drink, and she said no because bubonic plague was around at that moment in time. He kept insisting though, and she gave him some, which he said turned into wine as he drank it. Three days later he died of plague, on March 10, when he is celebrated by Christians across the World.

So What’s So Good About This Story?
Well, the fact that he drank water and it turned into wine, I would say is the miracle that makes this story special and is why he is celebrated. It’s impressive he made it all the way to Rome, but apart from that he was just a priest, doin’ his thang.

But, Um…
So he DID have plague, then? Right. That means the girl who kindly gave him some water would probably have contracted it too, right? And died? So surely that make her the Martyr here, instead of the Priest who near-forces a girl who doesn’t know him to give over some water That makes more sense to me, because essentially the Priest has transmitted his deadly illness to everyone else who has some of that water.

The important part of the story is the “miracle” when the water turns into wine. Not that I’m being a cynic of anything, but is the testimony of a dying Priest who has the plague really that reliable? I have no idea how bubonic plague works cos I tend not to get it, but his testimony that it turned into wine, that could be the delusional babbling of someone who is really quite seriously ill. And the girl doesn’t appear to back up the story. In fact, the whole story seems to be told mostly from Himelin’s viewpoint.

I can’t help but wonder why the fact it turned into wine would be a good thing, seeing how wine is an alcoholic beverage, and alcohol actually dehydrates the body instead of refreshing it, and this would not help Himelin with his plague (not that, uh, anything could, mind) but would instead actually speed up the death process. Perhaps then we are meant to celebrate the fact that God helped speed up this diseased dude’s death and thus saved the lives of anyone he might’ve met later on, had he lived a few days longer. He was Scottish, too, so surely a glass of Whisky might have been more appropriate.

Suggested Alternative For Sainthood:
Richard Whiteley, who never gave plague to anyone.