From the mists of time comes a tale oft told…

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

You see, you’re not like me.

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

But I know there is difference amongst you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Faithfully departed, we are gathered here today to commiserate…

Ah, sorry, wrong piece of parchment.

Faithfully departed, we are gathered here today to commiserate…

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

Twelve days of Christmas my arse.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blood. Blood! BLOOD!!!

And jam.

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

That will be all.

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