Caveats of the gods

'Slain warriors expected something good on arrival, and were mostly quite chagrined to be put into refugee camps on arrival in heaven'

I am pleased to be able to bring you another update on the regular high-level meetings of gods and goddesses to monitor progress on our planet. As you know, all gods past and present are entitled to attend, even if they are no longer believed in. This is from their most recent meeting, which was last week our time, and somewhere in eternity, their time.

I am pleased to be able to bring you another update on the regular high-level meetings of gods and goddesses to monitor progress on our planet. As you know, all gods past and present are entitled to attend, even if they are no longer believed in. This is from their most recent meeting, which was last week our time, and somewhere in eternity, their time.

1) The chairgod said he had better bring up the usual opening matter on the agenda, namely whether the Jewish god and the Christian god had effected a reconciliation recently. Or a working relationship. Or even had a conversation, for heaven's sake.

2) The Jewish god said that talking to the Christian god was not unlike talking to a company run by three equal partners, all of whom had slightly different messages. It reminded him slightly of the lonely traveller who comes to a town where there are three different inns, all open for business...

3) The Christian god said that it was impossible talking to the Jewish god, because instead of giving you a straight answer, he always told you a Jewish story. He wasn't against telling stories, but it was not quite as good as two-way exchanges of straight talking.

4) The Jewish god said, oh, he didn't like too many Jewish stories, did he? Well, excuse me, but he got the impression that the New Testament was full of Jewish stories, even if they were told by Jesus, the Christian god's son, all about the prodigal son and the sower who went out to sow, and so on, and excuse me, they were called parables in the New Testament but they were Jewish stories by any other name. Did the Christian god think they were Christian stories? He didn't think so.

5) In fact, said the Jewish god, it reminded him of the story of the Jewish tailor who has made a beautiful wedding dress for his ugly daughter, and he says to her... There he goes again, said the Christian god.

6) Perhaps some other time, said the Chairgod. They would now move on to the second item on the agenda, which was the war against Iraq.

7) Odin, chief of the Norse gods, said that although he approved of war in general, he couldn't take much interest in this one, as there were no Norse warriors involved, and therefore there would not be any celebrations and feasting and drinking in Valhalla after the battle, when the slain warriors came to be greeted as valiant heroes. In fact, were the truth to be known, over the years the noise of warriors celebrating in Valhalla had become a real nuisance and they had decided to relocate Valhalla some distance away.

8) The Chairgod said, yes, well, each war has its difficulties, and the chief one as they knew to their cost was that the slain warriors, whether Norse, Muslim, Christian or Jewish, all expected their prize in heaven when they arrived. He believed that Muslim warriors expected a hundred virgins on arrival, or something like that, and was that not true?

9) Allah said something like that, it wasn't clear, text corrupt, misunderstanding, fault translation, he would issue a statement in due course.

10) The Chairgod said, yes, well, quite, but the fact was that all slain warriors expected something good on arrival, and were mostly quite chagrined to be put into refugee camps on arrival so that their heaven applications could be sorted and checked. At the moment there was a terrific backlog, and he thought this reflected very badly on the ability of the gods to organise things. He was only grateful that nothing of this was known on earth.

11) A Hindu goddess with six arms waved four of them to catch his attention and said she had been told that while in these transit camps, these recently arrived souls were occasionally able to get in touch with their bereaved relatives on earth, via a medium. Was there any truth in this? If there was, she thought it probably breached heavenly rules.

12) The Chairgod said he was very sorry to say that there was some truth in this. While the souls were still in a Guantanamo Bay situation, if he could put it like that, the stronger of them could reach those on earth. But those on earth got very confused messages. Of course, they didn't realise that this was because the soul-transit camps were very confused places. A committee had been set up to look into ways and means of cutting off these illegal communications with Earth.

More of this tomorrow, I hope