John Walsh: God is so many things to so many people

Cheryl Cole told Piers Morgan that her split from England footballer Ashley Cole had left her heartbroken (ITV)

For a chap who probably doesn't exist, a man-invented metaphysical construct, God has been everywhere this week. He's been more in the news than Wayne Rooney's "well-brought-up" hooker. First Professor Stephen Hawking informed us that you didn't need God to kick-start the universe, and that it had created itself out of nothing, a bit like Piers Morgan. Then Baroness Greenfield, professor of "synaptic pharmacology" at Oxford, confronted the professor and said it would be a shame if young people thought that, to be a scientist, you had to be an atheist.

So God lives to fight another day – but he's having a tough time. This week, our own Robert Fisk, in his chilling dossier of "honour killings" in this newspaper, revealed that, in the barbarian regions of Turkey, a man shot his younger sister seven times after she eloped with a boyfriend, because the local imam told him he was "disobeying the word of God" if he didn't kill her. In A Journey, Tony Blair explains how, on 9/11, he came close to ordering the shooting-down of a passenger jet that was acting oddly over London. He did nothing and the jet turned out to be friendly. "I needed to sit down and thank God after that one!" he sighed. And in the church of Gainesville, Florida, where they're planning the ritual burning of 200 copies of the Koran this Saturday, the local pastor Terry Jones, tooled up with an arsenal of handguns in the event of Muslim reprisals, announced that nothing on Earth would stop him ("Maybe it's time to send a message to radical Islam") except "a signal from God".

In our enlightened, humanist 2010, it's touching to discover how many people believe God is working for them: that he's out there busily persuading recalcitrant Turks to kill their relatives for embarrassing the family, checking out low-flying British aircraft for evidence of menace, and intervening in the provocative posings of a deranged Floridian antiques dealer. Of course it's nothing new to find bad-asses everywhere claiming to have God on their side, whispering in their ears. But Mr Jones, knowing that's a sign of madness, adopts a cannier strategy. If God thinks I'm wrong, he says, let him stop me. And if He fails to act to stop Mr Jones incinerating Korans and fomenting anti-American violence, Jones can say: "He didn't signal me not to. He must have meant it to happen."

If there's one thing worse than men playing at being God, it's men making the Creator take the rap for their actions.

Who's a dastardly boy, then?

Whichever sport I thought would next fall victim to accusations of cheating and dirty tricks, I never thought it would be budgerigar breeding. I assumed budgie-smuggling was something to do with tight swimming trunks until I read about Andrew Pooley's discovery that 21 of his prize birds had been stolen from their aviary, and his champion, Penmead Pride, stamped to death just before a big show. Our hearts go out to him. But there's something irresistible about the idea of an international gang of budgie fanciers who'll stop at nothing to nobble the opposition. According to the papers: "A senior breeder, who asked not to be named, said he believed a 'Mr Big' had the birds stolen to order." Am I alone in picturing "Mr Big" as a small fat bloke perched on a swing, looking in a mirror with his head on one side, going, "Who's a big boy, then?"

A gut reaction to the nation's sweetheart

What bliss, to be "the nation's sweetheart." How lovely for Cheryl Cole to be adored by all, fancied by all and commiserated by all for the infidelity of her husband, the end of her marriage and the existence of her armed-robber brother. How a girl must love having her looks celebrated in every magazine, her liquefying eyes monitored by TV cameras, and her every appearance beside a man construed as evidence of a love affair.

But does she ever feel the definition of "sweetheart" sliding in the direction of "victim." Does it seem odd that watchers of The X Factor this weekend will be inspecting her for signs of her imminent infection with the malaria that nearly killed her in July (when the TV show was taped)? Ooh, look, you can hear the telly-ghouls saying – is that a film of sweat breaking out on her perfect brow? Is that a disfiguring tropical rash on her immaculate upper lip? What a shame if such a beautiful girl were to be crippled with vomiting and diarrhoea for four weeks solid...

A similar vindictiveness is apparent in the new issue of Vogue, which carries an interview conducted last July. After noting Cheryl's lovely smile ("It's blindingly obvious why she's the nation's sweetheart,") the interviewer opines that Cheryl is "tired, jaded, remote, a little 'off'. She notes the "very slight puffiness" about her jaw and "those gooey, heavily made-up eyes peering over her mug of peppermint tea."

Further, she tells us that Ms Cole is suffering from "acid reflux", and that she's a prey to attacks of paranoia "that I might have one of my private parts on show by accident". At the end, the writer reveals that, three days after the interview, Ms Cole was in intensive care, which explained her "off"-ness. But how the magazine dotes on her illness, her discomfiture, the commotion in her guts. Is this what lies in wait for a nation's sweetheart? I don't recall Vera Lynn being quizzed on her acid reflux. Or her private parts.