On The Buses

"There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” runs the brave and excellent ad backed by the British Humanist Association, causing miffed Christian bus driver Ron Heather to walk out of his shift and elect to have the day off instead. Not quite sure why he’s so tetchy at what's nothing more than a point of view, particularly when the church seems to put its, err… hard-earned tithe money to similar good use.

"If God exists, what would you ask him?" screamed an ad for The Alpha Course on the back of the Warminster to Chippenham bus as I waited behind it at the traffic lights on the way to work this morning.

On pondering this, I suppose the first thing I'd ask him is where my wife's mobile phone is. The kids made off with it a couple of months ago, and it's bound to be in amongst all their toys somewhere, but we've searched high and low for it without success. The battery was almost dead when it disappeared so we couldn’t even call it to discover its whereabouts.

All that other stuff about war, famine, man’s inhumanity to man and what kind of omniscient being would allow the slaughter of innocent women and children would come later (you know, the usual stuff about how it’s possible to let people to pootle along pre-determined paths towards unjustifiable injustice and torture).

Still, the mobile thing is quite annoying…