God Collar

by Marcus Brigstocke

  There’s a good chance that any God bought off the internet would end up in the box with my video camera, electronic picture frame, MP3 player, mobile phone, leather coat and signed INXS record waiting to be put back on eBay. Return whence you came, minidisk player. I cast thee out, USB-powered desktop hoover device. Back, back, I say, thou slightly wonky Ra the Sun God. I haven’t got round to selling these items back yet because I’m a bit scared of that sort of thing and I might not get what they are worth. Much better, then, to leave them lying in a plastic tub gathering dust and obsolescence. It turns out I have the same view of unused electrical items as the church has of reform. Who knew?

  You couldn’t get God delivered, because that would mean that at some stage He’d fall into the hands of the Post Office. I don’t care if your atheism falls on the cynical side of Richard Dawkins. No one really wants to see God fall into the hands of the Post Office. Many have argued convincingly for the end of faith altogether, but not like that. Not for all human belief in the supernatural to cease in an instant because God got ‘lost’ in the bowels of a sorting office or conveniently dropped into the Postie’s ‘special’ pile with cash-stuffed birthday cards and missing rent cheques. If God came to us care of the Post Office, they’d almost certainly bend Him. God doesn’t like to be bent. God doesn’t seem to want anyone to be bent. I’ve heard His followers be very specific on this point. It wouldn’t matter how clear the bright red ‘Do Not Bend’ sticker was, if you weren’t in when they tried to deliver God, they’d fold the bugger in two and drive Him through your letterbox with enough force to take the door off its hinges. You’d come home to find God lying whimpering and crumpled on your doormat with the pizza menus and the ‘Polish Amelia – make good cleening howse’ card.

  You’d hope that most people might choose to send God by recorded delivery, but then you’d have to wait in between 5 a.m. and 11 p.m., not daring to move more than an inch from the brushes on the letter flap in case you missed it. After time, the demands of a full bladder would tear you away for those few critical seconds and sure enough, as you sprint back towards the pair of deep, buttock-shaped indentations in the coconut matting, you’d see it. That little red, grey and white papery bastard that spells hours of frustration and despair.

  ‘We tried to deliver God but you were out.’

  No!!!! I was having a wee! I was gone for less than a minute!

  Tried? Really? You ‘tried’ to deliver my package, did you? How hard did you try exactly? You didn’t ring the pissing bell, did you? That, to me, would seem to be the entry level of effort. The step one of ‘tried to deliver your package’. Extend the finger, lean in, locate button, advance and stiffen finger upon contact with bell/buzzer, then depress for between two and four seconds. There, trying, isn’t it? Perhaps a knock too, or is that asking too much for grasping little mitts that can feel a gift voucher through four layers of envelope and card and have it away before the strains of ‘Happy Birthday to you …’ have subsided into embarrassment. Having made the heroic effort to ring the bell, how about, in the spirit of ‘trying’ to make the delivery, waiting more than the standard 0.0002 seconds before waddling off up the road in such a hurry. I can only presume that failing to accurately match up the number at the top of the address on the envelope with the one on the door takes more time than we’ve given it credit for, and this is the reason Postie can’t wait for more than a few seconds to see if anyone answers. How dare you go on strike? Better pay and conditions? Fine, have them, have it all, deliver the post from a silk and gold sedan chair for all I care, but deliver the post. Twice, preferably, like you used to. And while we’re at it … pick up those red rubber bands you’ve dropped. It looks like a sunburnt snake is shedding its elasticated skin in instalments on our pavement most mornings. My children believe that red rubber bands are a type of naturally occurring flora that only blooms after the shuffling feet of a daydreaming postal worker have germinated the rubber seed in London’s streets. Never trust a man who can’t whistle ‘Whistle while you work’ while he works.

  God forbid the Tories get their wet dream fulfilled and knacker another public service by selling it to their mates. That way we would all have the right to have God not delivered by a deliverer of our choice and all for just £85 per letter.

  I think it’s fair to say I have had some issues with the Post Office. Issues I now realize I probably shouldn’t keep mentioning on BBC Radio 4. All my letters smell of piss. Is that normal? No, I don’t think it is. I refuse to believe that everybody who writes to me is individually pissing on my letters. Although, when I think about it, I suppose it is a possibility. But that’s not the point. I don’t want God, in whichever of His many forms he chooses, to come to us ‘care of the Post Office’, bent double, late, with a red rubber band round Him, in an envelope, pissy, ripped or otherwise.

  Having pondered where else I might persuade the Lord to make Himself known to me and drawn yet another spiritual blank, I decided to put a personals ad in the Daily Telegraph.

  PERSONALS … Would like to meet …

  Boy seeks deity for walks, chats and possibly more. Non-smoker, GSOH essential.

  One assumes God is a non-smoker. I mean, He knew how damaging tobacco was before He’d even decided to create cigarettes, marketing and Big Tobacco. His is a high-pressure job though, so perhaps, since the ban on smoking indoors, He can be seen awkwardly avoiding St Peter’s gaze outside the pearly gates having a quick puff.

  Usually in a personals ad the ‘possibly more’ means ‘I’d like to have sex with you’. The ‘possibly’ is also an opt-out in case the person who answers is horrifically unattractive. To write ‘I’d like to have sex with you’ would certainly be more upfront, but I don’t think the Telegraph would be comfortable with that and it spoils the charming allure of the coded personals ad flirt. Even the printed word ‘bi-curious’ is enough to get most men fizzy if the hotel room’s lonely enough. I don’t wish to have sex with God, He’s screwed enough of humanity already and frankly I’d feel cheap. The ‘possibly more’ in this context refers to the notion that I could become quite dependent on the relationship over time and look to Him for more than just chats and strolls. If, after a respectful period of courtship, the friendship leads to some kissing and possibly even some light petting, then so be it.

  I chose to place my ad in the Telegraph because I think if God reads any newspaper it’s probably the Daily Telegraph, isn’t it? He’s the only entity large enough to be able to hold the bloody thing without needing to put an extension on his house. I mean, He made the Sun, but I don’t think He reads it, do you? I don’t think God reads the Guardian either. It would be very disappointing for religious people to get to Heaven and find wallcharts of interesting cheeses and charts of England’s Kings and Queens hung up all over the place. So I chose the Telegraph. They were slightly baffled by my phone call, but given that they regularly have announcements in the births/deaths/weddings column like Torquil Fartguard-Caffingham-Smear is delighted to announce his engagement to his thoroughbred hunter (16 hands) Lullabel-Blackshirt to be wed in his stables on January 4th 2011, I didn’t think they’d be too perplexed by my spiritual quest for an imaginary friend.

  So up it went. Boy seeks deity for walks, chats and possibly more. I got no response at first, so I put it in again the next week and paid for an extra line. Likes: taking metaphors too literally. Dislikes: gays. I had one almost plausible response but it gave Croydon as the address … I thought He’s quite unlikely to have chosen to live in Croydon.

  So it’s hard to know where to find God. As soon as you step away from the conventional religious route, then you’re very much on your own, with your best hope of finding Him being luck. This seemed very unlikely to deliver because I’m not usually a lucky person and God hasn’t been seen wandering about on Earth since about the first third of the Old Testament.

  At one stage on my search I was offered a religious sat-nav system at a car boot sale. It wasn’t quite what I wa
s after. When I turned it on it just kept on saying, ‘I am the way, the truth and the light.’ That’s all very well but I was trying to get to Cricklewood. When I reprogrammed the destination to take me to Heaven, the soothing voice said repeatedly, ‘At the end of your life … say sorry.’ I would, but who knows when the end of my life will be? I couldn’t bear to be one of those people who spend their whole time apologizing. I’m sorry but I just couldn’t. I don’t think the spiritual sat nav really exists but it would be an excellent gimmick for any church seeking to make a few extra dollars from the gullible.

  *

  Plenty of people decide not to bother searching for God at all but instead indulge the desire to have something to believe in by worshipping stuff. Steve Jobs at Apple Mac doesn’t exactly make false idols but he merely has to shove the letter ‘i’ on the front of a new thing and most of us are on our knees in wide-eyed adoration and worship. We are iSuckers. It’s no coincidence that the iCon for this false idolatry is an apple with a bite taken out. Come on, Eve, take a nibble of this iPad and experience original sin at the stroke of a finger.

  I was going to get an iPhone to see if there was an ‘app’ for God in there. For everything else ‘there’s an app for that’ so I had an iThought, why not God? Good, I’ll get an iPhone then and I’ll download God straight off the apps page … Then I realized that if I got an iPhone I’d be the sort of person who has an iPhone, and frankly I’d rather be a fundamentalist Muslim. I realize there are almost certainly iPhone users reading this book. Hello, I hope you’re very happy. Pop the book down and check your messages. Got any? No? Welcome back. Remember, I’m a book … Oh, what’s the point, you’ll have lost concentration again by now.

  Here’s a couple of pointers for iPhone users. 1: Grow up. 2: You just bought one, you didn’t invent it. OK? I’ll tell you what, here’s an ‘app’ for you. Why don’t you see if you can leave it in your pocket for more than a minute? Apply that application and see if your real-life friends start coming back to you. You know, human friends, real people, with meat and skin on rather than an avatar and a 140-character update beamed through space concerning their fascinating day shopping for toilet paper.

  In case you’re dismissing me as a Luddite, you’re wrong. I’m not scared of iPhones. I like them. I think they’re beautiful; I think the technology’s absolutely breathtaking. It’s exciting; who knows where it will go next? I don’t communicate with my friends by telegram and carrier pigeon. I’m into innovation and I’m excited by the fact that we live now in the age of communication. Lucky us. If I didn’t think I’d become one of you, I would get an iPhone. I know you’ve been enjoying yourselves with them and they’re amazing, and look at this – it fires angry birds at pigs and they’re beautiful and here’s the stockmarket price and they’re amazing and look my one’s making a light-sabre noise and everything. But you must accept the fact that while you hunch over your little handheld device, thrilling at the marvel of being able to scroll through screen after screen of improving and enlightening information with just the swish of your finger, to everybody else you just look as if you’re trying to wank off a gerbil. Trust me, once that image is in your head you’ll never see iPhone users in the same way again. Every time I see some finger-wiggler gawping into his fist on the train and see the concentration on his face as his wrist gyrates softly to and fro, all I can see in my head is a little mouse, lying on its back, being pleasured by a numpty. That’s the trouble with the iPhone. It’s entirely wasted on the kind of people that want one.

  Now there’s the iPad too. The guinea-pig-sized pleasuring device. No, thank you. With the exception of Stephen Fry, who one assumes knows what he’s doing, there really is no excuse for the iPad. If it didn’t seem too ghastly and totalitarian I’d round up the first-generation iPad owners and make them stand on a rickety scaffold as I fired angry pigs at them from a huge trebuchet. People keep telling me, ‘Yes, Marcus, but you can take a thousand books on holiday with you.’ Good. ‘You can have the entire online library right there in your hand on the beach.’ Really? Well, I learned to swim and that’s what I want from a beach, that and rock pools. So, have fun swishing through titles and trying not to go blind from the glare of the sun reflecting off the screen, I’ll be in the sea having a laugh and looking for Neptune. In fairness, I’m more likely to go searching for Nemo. The new technology may be marvellous, but excuse me if I choose not to face iMecca every twenty minutes and touch my head to the floor in praise.

  There is no app for God in the iPhone anyway. I’ve checked. There’s an app with beer in it; I’ve been shown that too many times. Twice. It’s because it’s a free app, so everyone’s got it. If you know an iPhone user, give it time and soon enough they will come up to you with their iPhone and show you the hilarious beer app. On the screen it looks like the phone’s got beer inside it. It hasn’t, it’s a phone. But it looks like real golden sloshy beer that seems to move about in much the same way that real golden sloshy beer does. When the scintillator who’s digitally pouring your time down the drain shows you this brilliant ‘app’, you’re supposed to look delighted as they tip the phone and the digital liquid inside seems to disappear as if being poured out of the device. They will then place the corner of the phone against their smiling lips and tip it backwards to complete the illusion they are an utter twat. Then, as they pretend to drink, they give a mumbled commentary of what you can see isn’t happening, but would be if they’d bought a pint. ‘Ooh, ooh, look, it’s like the beer’s disappearing. Oh, there’s a beer in my phone. Oh, where’s it going? Mmmmm. Delicious …’ They take the phone away from their mouth and without a trace of embarrassment make the ‘I’ve just had a refreshingly large drink’ noise – ‘Aahhh.’ They then look, smiling and expectant, straight at your face. What are they waiting for? Congratulations, perhaps? A round of applause? A real pint? A marriage proposal? Actual beer still exists, is available and does what it has always done. To me, digital beer would seem to be somehow ‘less than’ real beer. But, you know, go ahead and knock yourselves out, you lonely, lonely freaks.

  I also don’t believe that God invented man in the hope that eventually we would invent the iPhone and then finally He would be able to reveal Himself to us. Shining and full of love and pride at the marvel of His creation’s ingenuity …

  ‘Well done. You have passed my test. It is the iPhone. That is what humanity was for.’

  And no one would notice. God would have to remount His cloud and sheepishly disappear back into the heavens alone, as every human being on Earth failed to spot He’d been to congratulate us. Stood as we were hunched and squinting at a tiny fistful of excitable rodent about to achieve yet another shudderingly good orgasm at the deft touch of a generation lost to the portable communications and gaming device. Gerbil wankers.

  If you’re reading this with a BlackBerry buzzing away in your pocket, you can grow up as well. You only chose the BlackBerry so it would look like a business call was really a text inviting you for a pint and a curry. At least the iPhone users had the courage to try full-strength phone crack. BlackBerry users are still getting their fix from the digital equivalent of laudanum. Certainly if the human fingertip was two millimetres wide then the BlackBerry would come into its own, but as it is, trying to use the keyboard to type a message on a BlackBerry is like trying to do keyhole surgery with a JCB.

  That last tirade seems reasonably likely to have thinned my readership down to you elite few who are not afraid of a touch of light ribbing. The rest will have thrown the book down long before this chapter anyway, as it has too many words and not enough pics and URL links to YouTube clips of fat people falling over at weddings.

  What I’m stabbing at, like a fat finger at a BlackBerry keypad, is that this is a question of what and how we worship. Even the most devout atheists continue to put their praise and reverence somewhere. It might be somewhere better than the church. Maybe. There’s a fair chance it’ll be reverence for Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or someone si
milar. There are many people who have lost the ability to distinguish between the things you own and the person you are. The portable communications device, brilliant though it is, is often at the heart of this mistake. Those people most affected by this syndrome will have put this book to one side to send a tweet asking if anyone anywhere in the world has ever done anything as crazy as making a cup of tea but forgetting the tea bag. I know because I am one of those people. If God came to see us, the first and last I’d know about it would be a tweet with #Godcame on it.

  I like my phone; I spend too long gawping at it in the hope of validation from another lost soul like me. But I don’t wish to worship my phone or have it define my existence. Anyway, I shan’t dwell further on the deification of the false idols, even if they do have an app that can find a Michelin-starred restaurant in Preston. Amazing what they can do these days.

  Back to the search for God.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a documentary on the television, or perhaps heard one on the radio, about what it’s like sharing your life with somebody who has Alzheimer’s disease. It’s so very hard. For the person who has it, it’s a hellish, isolating and frightening condition, but for those who love and care for the poor soul who has Alzheimer’s, I think it’s probably worse. Because you can still physically see the person, they’re still there with you. And yet mentally and emotionally they are completely removed from you. Lost in a different world where the stark sadness of a loved one trying to reach you and to revive that human connection is a concept with no traction in your reality. It seems to me that the visible presence of the Alzheimer’s sufferer, the fact that you can still see them, that they are still there with you and they still look like they did before this disease took them to wherever it is they’ve gone – it’s that which makes the mental and emotional absence so much harder to deal with …