Snookered by Biblical Bemuslement

While avoiding the football again today I enjoyed the sunshine, was very nosey browsing everyone's facebook questionnaires, and watched a little of the snooker. I'm from a family who adore snooker, and so weekends (or Bank Holidays, as it was here today) feel incomplete at this time of year without having been subjected to a little of the game. Since early childhood, if I had to assign a colour to BBC2 then for me it was - and shall always be - green baize. I recall the days when Steve Davis was at the top of his game, and Stephen Hendry was still the "new kid on the block." (Actually, I remember 'New Kids On The Block,' too, unfortunately.)

I don't know anything else about snooker, but today made the following observations:

1) Within about two-and-a-half seconds, I had decided that I like Ronnie O'Sullivan with longer hair. He's cut it and lost weight, but I think he suited 'slightly scruffy.' He still won though, so Samson was obviously wrong.

2) Ronnie's opponent - Carter - was wearing an unnecessarily ridiculous tartan bow tie, which immediately caused me to lose any potential respect for him.

3) My favoured snooker ball colours are, in order of preference: Black, Green, Blue, Pink Yellow and then Brown. There are too many Red balls, which makes them unremarkable, and therefore unworthy of attention. The White ball I do not like because it is purely practical, and there is something vulgar about anything so unapologetically 'trade.'

Ronnie O'Sullivan - then and now.


My father told me that absolutely none of my newly discovered snooker-trivia would help me get a job as a BBC Sports presenter. I'd never considered it, but I think he meant that whereas I can usually blag my way through a conversation, I would fail dismally in any debate about sport. I'm terribly uninformed. I'm just as hopeless with religion - so would never be employed to work on Songs of Praise, either.

Regardless of the many separate religions, the differences between the concepts of religion, faith and belief are still complex, and I am not devout enough in any faith to spend too much time concerning myself with the argument. Discussing this with someone the other day, it struck me that - as what can only be loosely defined as an Agnostic Theist - I treat belief in God the same way I view kiddie's armbands. My first swimming lesson, I remember being nervous about stepping into un-chartered territory; splashing out on my own seemed an impossible thing to be asked. I did it because I was assured that the blow-up armbands would save me from going under. My belief in God, despite my derisory view of religion, is a similar premise. I have to feel like there's some back-up; that we're doing more than simply "trying not to drown." Having some belief gives me a little hope that there's a life belt if I screw up. Not so much 'Father, Son, and Holy Ghost' - as 'arm-bands, sand, and plastic floats,' but it's still better than thinking that the buck always stops with me. I wouldn't put myself in charge of anything, let alone something as important as my own destiny!

This is what happens when - instead of taking a kid to church at the weekend - you let them see Baywatch. ...Though, it could work, that: The Hoff as Christ, Pammy as Mary (Magdalene, obviously. Not even God would believe she'd conceived immaculately.)

David Hasselhoff (sex-symbol he may once have been, but I wouldn't even nail him to a cross.)


If Pamela Anderson was the mother of Christ, then the Nativity Story would end with God going on Jeremy Kyle for a paternity test, Tommy Lee would turn out to be Joseph, and he'd dramatically show the sex-tape to prove Jesus was actually his kid. The church would crumble - only to reform off the back of an emotional apology on Oprah. God would sit there all tearful, like Gwyneth at the Oscars, begging to be given a second chance and agreeing to step aside so Pammy and Tommy Lee can raise the kid - providing he gets access once the boy reaches about 33. The Christian Bible would then just be a celebrity biography. (Well, it's pretty much that already.)

I think that once one suggests Jesus' mother was a porn-star, then it's probably time to stop typing and go play some Marilyn Manson records backwards. Or maybe pray, because I think I'd hate Hell. I'm just too English for hot weather. The merest hint of summer, and I switch the big fan on. I don't think they have air-conditioning in Purgatory. Shame really - especially with global warming, because then it'll be hotter than...well...hell, I imagine.

Maybe I'll eschew satanic tunes - and prayer - in favour of something a little more pleasingly divine; like tea and chocolate.

That really is heaven. Apparently.