Every so often our friend Ray Peters sends us newspaper cuttings form England; articles in which he feels we would be interested. The first one I picked out of the envelope today was one on television criticism by John Preston. And his opening remarks? “Roughly eighty percent of the letters I receive are about the same thing, background music. Or rather (should that really be the beginning of a new sentence Mr Preston?), obtrusive background music, which, of course, is not background music at all. If the scale of my correspondence is to be believed, there are huge numbers of people out there who stuff their fingers ion their ears and emit bellows of fury whenever a tiny glockenspiel (tiny?) starts beating frenetically away on the soundtrack. Not only is there far too much of it, they argue, but it’s becoming ever more obtrusive.” So I am far from being the only one. See my Blog Arsenic Ad Old Lace. I am sure though that none of the complaints will have the slightest effect on trendies and especially on trendy young lions.

One of the programmes criticised was The Genius Of Charles Darwin during which, evidently a boy said he believed in God because he had read the Bible. What! From Genesis to the end? A boy? Not an old man who has had the time, let alone the inclination, but a boy? Actually he would get just as much sense out of it if he read The Bible According To Spike Milligan. He would also have a good laugh at the same time.

I have just finished reading Prisoner of Tehran which confirms my solid belief that the world would be a much better place if it could be rid of al the religious maniacs, fanatics and brain-washed bigots. How can you possibly accept a man who in the same breath invokes the intercession of Allah the all merciful and condemns sixteen year old girls to torture, rape, (a raped girl evidently doesn’t go to paradise so her torturers and executioners won’t get to meet her there) and death. It simply makes no sense and, if this is what a belief in God does for you, whether it be the Christian one, Jehovah or Allah or any other, then I am very very glad I have no religious convictions. The Greeks were so wise to make their gods no more than super-humans.