 Big Daddy and the Wrinkly Reptile Sex Scandal
Dad: Well, of course, those opening chapters were written by Moses and it is possible that he just forgot to mention the dinosaurs. He probably wanted to get on quickly to the exciting bits, about who begat Jokias, and whether Gomesh begat Zackibat or vice-versa. He had a lot on his mind, perhaps, and he rushed past the Jurassic era. Son: Giant lizards twenty metres high and with a mouth like a skip full of knives? Ruling the Earth for fifty millionyears? And Moses fails to notice them? He must have needed glasses like bin lids. I don't think anyone outside Paisley's immediate family is going to be convinced by that one. Dad: I said that he forgot them, not that he didn't notice them. R.E. Ingersoll, the famous American Humanist who served in the American Civil War, has written extensively on the Mistakes of Moses and some More Mistakes of Moses. I was merely adding one more little blunder to the pile, without wishing to make the perpetrator look like a total moron. Son: I don't see why we should provide any sort of a cover story for him here in the BHG web-site. We have a duty tothe truth, you know. Dad: Quite right. Son. I stand rebuked. But even you must admit that there is always the possibility of a revised edition of the Bumper which will somehow accommodate dinosaurs into the Creation Myth. Son: What, like having Eve being tempted by a talking dinosaur, instead of a snake? Dad: Well, snakes and dinosaurs are both reptiles. It could be passed off as a new translation. Son: Sorry, Dad, it won't work. A dinosaur could not hide behind a tree and tempt the first woman with an apple.Imagine the huge fangs and claws coming at you when you are stark naked - you wouldn't waste much time on a magic apple in its paw. You'd be roaring out of the Garden like Nigel Mansell. Dad: Yes, dinosaurs do have a certain presence, I must admit. But that can be turned to good account. Some ancientcreatures with wrinkled skin and huge teeth and claws are parading across our TV screens and doing very well out of it. Son: You mean the Joan Collinsosaurus, the chat-show predator from the late Cretinaceous period? She seems to have been around for millions of years. Dad: She's a prime example of the species, but actually I was thinking of the real Tyrantosaurus Wrex British Economy, Mega Thatcheropod herself. She has been sighted prowling around the cultural wastes of America, uttering blood-curdling screams and sharpening her claws to feed on Disastaurus Hague, the limping leader of a herd of panic-stricken Tories. Son: So the Thatcheropod is not extinct after all? Dad: Unfortunately not. She is now employed by the American tobacco giant, Philip Morris Inc., to promote their deadly addictions in the Third World and Eastern Europe; anywhere, in fact, that carcinogenic substances are not in abundant supply. You know, what with selling arms and missiles all round the world and now helping in the spread of deadly diseases, Mega Thatcheropod has a good claim to a directorship of The Grim Reaper plc. Son: When I think of the ravaged state she left the NHS in, I only hope that one day she will get a taste of her own Dad: Maybe that is what was meant by Back to Basics: no medicine, no schools, no hospitals, just Every Man for Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost. Son: A bit of a bum deal for the Devil, by the sound of it. But actually, the policy is really Every Man for Whoever He Can Get his Hands On. Remember all that fuss about single-parent families and the great social problem they represented? Now it appears that Tory politicians had created most of the problem themselves. It's like Blue Peter: "And here's another one I made earlier, but don't try this at home unless you are sure you won't be caught." Dad: Hear, hear. Law and Order and Back to Basics - it has a Frontier feel to it when you run them together. It conjures up saddles and ropes and sleeping by the campfire under the stars. I can picture John Wayne riding off into the desert, getting back to his basics, dishing out law and order as he goes. Son: And selling arms, missiles, superguns and tobacco as a side-line. "I don't like it here it's too quiet. Let me sell you a couple of tanks and a missile launcher." Dad: Ah yes, the joys of the simple life. Back to Basics puts you in touch with Nature again that Nature which in our modem sophisticated lives we can all so easily forget. The Nature which the dinosaurs knew so well and which we are all going to know intimately if things keep going the way they are. Son: Accentuate the positive. Dad. The big toothy dinosaurs are museum pieces now and Thatcheropod and Disastaurus Hague are heading the same way. Even Jurassic Park has passed its peak. But while they are fading into the past The Belfast Humanist Group is shining forth, a beacon of rational, sceptical, common sense that beams right up the nose of antiquated beliefs. We may be only two fictional deities but wrapped in the pages of the BHG web-site we glow like North Sea fish and chips. Dad: Time up, Son. Let's glow! Les Reid |