Well I warned you, the Vatican. I told you to go for a younger man, but no, you went with the old bloke and what happens? If you'd gone for me when I had applied in 2005 then I'd still be up and at 'em and doing the job. My fear with Benedict was that he was a bit of a flip-flopper. First of all he supported Hitler, then he decided Jesus was better. Now, who knows, maybe he's gone back to his original ideas. I have always thought Jesus was better than Hitler. ALWAYS. Hitler did some terrible things, really bad and nearly everything Jesus did was brilliant. I mean he threw over those tables that time, he had a bit of a temper, but that doesn't really equate with Auschwitz. I mean you'd really have to love furniture to get more upset about that. He was a carpenter too, he probably mended everything afterwards. Made those tables better with some of his magic God glue. I don't know.
Anyway Benedict is going, for whatever reason. Perhaps he's realised that God doesn't exist after all. Or maybe he's fallen in love and is giving all this up for a woman. It'd be nice to think he gets to have a shag before he goes. Or maybe a man. What would be perfect is if him and Richard Dawkins have fallen in love, in an unlikely Romeo and Juliet style forbidden relationship. It would make a great rom-com. Certainly better than "I Give It A Year" which I was unlucky enough to sit through this evening. (I've seen some celeb endorsements of this film and can only presume they're from people who are being paid or are hoping to get some work with the people behind it. Do not go to see it. It is really bad. Those vaguely funny things you have seen in the trailers are the comedic highlights. The characters are unlikable, none of the scenarios could ever happen and there's no real explanation as to why the couple got married in the first place or why they stayed together when they did. I want my money back and am going to try and get it off Stephen Merchant next time I see him, even though he's the best thing in it, but I don't know any of the others).
I don't know what has happened to the Pope. God clearly still wants him to be Pope or otherwise He'd have killed him like the others. Is this like when I applied for a job at Marks and Spencer during my year off. I pretended I wanted a career at the store, but really I was hoping to stay there for a month or two so I could make some money for inter-railing. Benedict must have accrued quite a little nest egg (think of the money he has saved in rent alone), plus he can sell his story to the tabloids and do the lecture circuit now.
I have been wondering whether to apply for the job again. You can read my original application
here or if you're too lazy to read you can hear me reading it out
here.
I should probably write a new letter because things have changed a bit and I am going to have to ask them to turn a blind eye to the fact I am married now. It might lose me the job but I think I would also have to make more of the fact that I would plan to stop all Catholics having sex with children and that I would be selling off all the palaces, art and treasure and giving the money to the poor. I would also use some of that money to buy condoms to distribute free to the people of Africa, regardless of their faith and I would try and make the church a bit more about following the advice of Jesus, which seems to have gone a bit by the wayside. I would also overturn the Vatican's ban on dancing and listening to music.
These things might make me unpopular with some of the older Archbishops, but I reckon the teenage ones and maybe even the ones in their early 20s would think I was cool and just the breath of fresh air that the Catholic Church required. Plus it'd make a great sequel to the Benedict/Dawkins rom-com. A fish out of water atheist pope who doesn't know what he's doing, makes funny errors, winds up the cardinals, but eventually they all learn to respect each other and he turns out to be the best Pope ever.
My only worry is that Benedict will be hanging around the Vatican, passing comment on my (or whoever wins the vote's) decisions, tutting and sniggering and making rude asides. That's why the Pope HAS to die.
It's a poisoned chalice in many ways. Only sweetened by the fact that probably somewhere in the Vatican is the Holy Grail which is the antidote to the poison and give you eternal life and magic powers.
This afternoon I went to the TV Centre (I was very wrong about never going there again) to chat with Charlie Brooker and Tony Law about the news and some TV shows for this week's Weekly Wipe. It was lots of fun at the time and we chatted for ages, so it'll be interesting to see what survives into the three minute bit they show on TV. You can find out on Thursday night.
