Thirteen gathered in the upstairs room, as the
High priests plotted for the saviour's doom
Blood and body in the wine and bread, then he
Kissed his enemy in sweet Gethsemane and
Twelve hours later he was dead.

If you enjoy this essay, please consider purchasing a copy of Where Dawkins Went Wrong and Other Theological Blockbusters from this address - a collection of  some of the best and most-linked-to essays from this blog and its predecessor. It contains my five part assault critique of 'The God Delusion', along with essays on gay bishops, the 'gospel' of Judas, the 'legend' of the three wise men.

Miss Scarlet is an unmarried cyclist. Every Sunday, she attends Holy Communion at the Parish Church of St Hilda of Walsingham.

Mrs. White lives next door to her. One morning, she remarks “How can you possibly eat a bowl of Kellogs Crunchy Nut Cornflakes on Sunday mornings? I know that they are widely regarded as being very, very tasty, but surely everyone knows that the first food you eat on the Sabbath should be the Blessed Sacrament.”

“That sounds like a lot of High, Popish codswallop and fiddle-faddle” explains Miss Scarlet.

“I shall tell you what we should do,” ripostes Mrs White. “We should go to Rev. Green who has the holy anointing of a Priest, and, what is more, an M.A in Religious Studies from the Open University, and ask him what he thinks.”

Rev. Green thinks very carefully, and says that Mrs. White is quite right. Miss Scarlet says that since he is the Vicar, he probably knows best about religious things. From that day on, she always skips breakfast on Sunday mornings.

A few weeks later, Col. Mustard visits Miss Scarlet, and asks her to marry him! She is delighted, and asks Rev. Green to conduct the wedding.

But all is not well! Col. Mustard has been married before, and his first wife (Mrs. Col. Mustard, presumably) is still alive. Rev. Green says that he cannot possibly marry a divorced person in church, and Miss Scarlet will have to hold the ceremony in the private function suite of the Fish and Ferret (licensed for the solemnization of marriages.) Miss Scarlet says that since he is the Vicar, he probably knows best about religious things, but that if she can't be married before God, she doesn't want to be married at all.

Col Mustard is so heartbroken that he kills himself, in the billiard room, with the lead piping, which causes a certain amount of confusion further down the line.

One day, it so happens that Mrs. White's young son, Lilly, crawls through a hole in Miss Scarlet's fence in order to retrieve his football, which he has inadvertently kicked into her garden. During this expedition, he treads on one of Miss. Scarlet's begonias, which she had been intending to enter in the annual village flower show.

When Miss Scarlet hears of this, she waxeth exceeding wrath, and goeth round to Mrs. White's house demanding financial compensation to make up for not winning the flower show, which was, she says, a dead cert.

“Don't be silly,” says Mrs White “This isn't criminal damage, just a case of ordinary child-ish hi-jinks.”

“I shall tell you what we shall do,” says Miss Scarlet. “Although this is not strictly a religious thing, Rev. Green is a sensible fellow. He is disinterested in this case, and we both respect him. Let's ask him what he thinks.”

Rev. Green listens very carefully and says that it is in a very real sense a pity about the begonia, but that he feels that in a very real sense in this case a simple apology should be quite adequate. Miss Scarlet reluctantly agrees to this, since it was her idea to go to Rev. Green in the first place. “A bet's a bet.” she exclaims.

“That went rather well,” thinks Rev. Green. The next Sunday, he preaches a very witty sermon, though he says so himself, in which he suggests that when any of the villagers have a quarrel with their neighbours, they should let him sort it out, in accordance with the sixth chapter of the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

So, when Mrs. White's son kicks his football right through Mis Scarlet's window, scattering glass in her aspidistra and knocking one of her china poodles off the mantelpiece, she doesn't even knock her neighbour's front door. She walks straight round to the Vicarage, and, after queuing for several hours, tells Rev. Green exactly what has happened. After giving the matter several minutes of considerable thought, Rev. Green phones Mrs. White and tells her that this time she should give her son a clip-round-the-ear.

But just at the precise moment, the Village Bobby arrives, and explains that we don't do that kind of thing any more, on account of the European Convention on Human Rights and political correctness having gone mad.

The Rev. Green says that it is his unshakable moral conviction that whoever spareth the rod hates his, or in this case her, son, and that since we hall have freedom of conscience, Mrs. White should damn well chasteneth him betimes.

The Village Bobby says that he daresay that's as maybe, Sir, but the law's the law.

The Rev. Green says that he doesn't see why some ridiculous law made by Frenchmen, homosexuals and Scottish people can possibly over-ride the book of Proverbs, the thirteenth chapter, commencing to read at verse twenty four.

Feeling that they've reached a bit of an impasse, they decide to to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury what he thinks. After several seconds of careful thought, it is decided that Rev. Green has a perfect right to run the village in accordance with Christian principles if that's what the villagers want, and that if they don't like it they can jolly well move to the I.T College down the road where fatwahs are being issued according to the terms of reference on of the constitution of the United Federation of Planets (done at the planet Babel, Star Date 0965.)

So everyone had a transformative accommodation and lived happily ever after.

I, of course preferred Jack Kirby's definitive version of 2001.

Surely what matters is the manner of Mehdi Kazemi's execution? We've already established that New Labour has no problem with handing people over to foreign states which are planning to execute them without a proper trial for crimes which would not be capital offenses in the UK, providing they are polite to them on the scaffold.