John had his operation yesterday and is doing OK, his wife tells me.
He'll be back with us soon but, meanwhile, here are this week's
Speccie results.
Our Chris, Bazza and Sam are all winners - big congratulations to you three! Very well done. There was no room for any hon. menshes so we don't know who else came close.
Saturday, 13th August 2011
In Competition No. 2708 you were invited to submit an obituary of either God or Homo sapiens. There is space only to congratulate the winners, printed below, who get £25 each, and to share this delightful and pertinent limerick by Gerard Benson:
There was nothing, then dinosaurs, then
There were mammals and finally men,
Who ruled for a while
In belligerent style,
And then there was nothing again
Brian Murdoch scoops the bonus fiver.
The death has occurred in a Bournemouth nursing home of God, after a protracted battle with rationalism. Although early announcements of his death by Nietzsche proved unfounded, he never really recovered from serious Darwinism. Originally in a group, the Elohim, he went solo under the name Jehovah, but his fans called him simply ‘the creator’. He ousted the long-running Greek and Roman pantheons, and even toppled Northern thrash-metal deities such as Thor. In his early career he became known for violent stunts, sometimes wrecking entire cities with his signature fire and brimstone. His date of birth is unclear; biographers range from ‘before time’ (Moses) to ‘never’ (Dawkins). It is, however, generally accepted that God was an Englishman. He never married, and an (alleged) son predeceased him. He died intestate, and the question of who will inherit the universe is currently in the hands of his lawyers (Messrs Lucifer, Satan and Beelzebub).
Brian Murdoch
God, a simultaneously omnipresent and elusive celebrity whom many have regarded as the creator, sustainer and destroyer of the universe, has been found dead everywhere. Authorities have yet to determine a cause of death, saying only that the deceased was reputed to move in mysterious ways. Known by a variety of names, God was a superhuman Being of indeterminate age and gender, said to have been on the side of virtually every combatant in all of history’s wars. God was credited with the authorship of several codes of human conduct which focus on details of diet, dress, sexual behaviour and ritual observance, and which have confused some observers by both forbidding and condoning murder. God seldom granted interviews, although numerous prominent figures have spoken on His or Her behalf, offering frequently conflicting accounts of God’s personality, activities, and likes and dislikes. Biologist Richard Dawkins has called the death ‘unbelievable’.
Chris O’Carroll
An only child, God (G, by common consensus) had poor social skills, preferring to immerse Himself in complex engineering projects, always working alone. He was, to be sure, a Great Architect, a Grand Geometrician who envisaged the Big Picture. He fared less well, however, when devising life forms conducive to their environments. Many Earthbound creatures were patently unfit for purpose: the dinosaur range, for instance, proved unsuited to long-term sustainability; and the ostrich simply failed to get off the ground. It is generally agreed that the locust was the product of a Divine Senior Moment. Recent attempts to refine the Homo sapiens brand served only to demonstrate that the prototype was irrevocably flawed. No record of G’s origins exists, nor is there reliable evidence of birth, baptism, education or career aspirations. Ikea, His partner of some 13.7 billion years, survives Him, as does a Son.
Mike Morrison
The unexpected death of God has radically divided opinion. ‘An almighty shock,’ was how one tearful woman laying a floral tribute at Westminster Abbey described its effect, while an atheist blogger greeted the news satirically, with ‘Invisible? Yes. Immortal? No.’ The truth is that God was a controversial figure from the very week in 4004 bc when He created the universe. His taste for ‘tough love’ and exigent moral codes won him a reputation for not suffering fools gladly. Many feared His volatile moods. Yet to others He could no do wrong. Perhaps most problematic was His Catch-22 ‘free will’ doctrine, designed (in Milton’s words) ‘to render Man inexcusable’ for the world’s wickedness, while all credit for sweetness and light remained with Him. But most agree He will be generally missed. As Beckett once wrote: ‘The bastard! He doesn’t exist!’ It wasn’t all over then. It is now.
Basil Ransome-Davies
Homo sapiens (age uncertain)
Sunday slipped behind the curtain.
Born and reared in Asia Minor,
He was flawed by his designer
But arose through education
To a lord-and-master station.
Working fast and even faster
Caused the biosphere’s disaster
Through his faulty overseeing
Of the earth’s Great Chain of Being.
His decline was such a slow one
His survivors number no one.
He had asked to be cremated
By the climate he created.
His was not a happy ending.
Funeral details are pending.
R.S. Gwynn
After a long and ineffable existence, God the Almighty, alias Allah, etcetera, departed this life with, ipso facto, no possible prospect of meeting His Maker. Seeing all but always unseen, He kept Himself to Himself but was pictured by mortals as everything from Kon-Tiki the sun god to God the Son.
The cause of death remains unclear though undisclosed sources in Murdoch’s new News of the World without End insist He was ‘Damned and Destroyed by Dawkins’ — an odd assumption since neither came anywhere near each other. Little, with any certainty, is known about God although countless children will doubtless mourn the demise of the bearded man in the sky just as many committed Anglicans will continue to worship whatever it is that they always have. God’s tragic omega is not expected to affect the status quo. For believers and atheists alike it should be ‘business as usual’.
Alan Millard
NO. 2711 MARRIAGE GUIDANCE
To keep your marriage brimming,/ With love in the loving cup,/ Whenever you’re wrong admit it;/ Whenever you’re right shut up.’ So says Ogden Nash. You are invited to cook up a recipe for marital bliss on behalf of a poet of your choice (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, if possible, to
lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 24 August.
(Once more standing in for John) Spectator Comp results: God or Homo sapiens
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