Postcard from Earth (4: happy birthday)

Dear Pater,

Celebrated my (Earthly) birthday today. It seems to be one of the few benefits of being here, since as far as I know I don't have a birthday in the Realm. You must explain that to me someday.

Anyway, everyone was very sweet. They put my presents under a tree - I suppose it is the thought that counts because the presents themselves were rubbish, to whit:

- a turnip
- a broom
- a pair of sandals
- some sand
- a stick (not sure if this is intended to be burnt, or to support me as I walk)
- a lump of cheese (at least I hope that's what it is)

The younger children were very kind, as was Mary, my surrogate mum. She did at least cook a nice meal including one of my favourites, Jerusalem Sprouts.

It was somehow telegraphed to me that this was a one-off and that I needn't expect an annual bash.

Fair enough.

Anyway, that's all for now,
Love to mama.

PS - send a pressie if you like, but no pressure.

Postcard from Earth (3: we do laugh)

Dear Pater,

Trust all is well in the Realm. Things continue to limp along here. I would like to make my mark, but how? Need to reflect on that a while.

Anyway, enough of the serious stuff. You'll laugh at this. I'm still sneaking off to the temple to have a bit of argy bargy with the local clerics and we've got into this kind of comic routine. When I get there they say "Well, if it isn't the little whippersnapper" and then I retort "Well, if it isn't the big whoppersnippers".

We do laugh.

But maybe you have to be there.

That's all for now,
Love to mama.

PS - of course it occurs to me that you may not know about genital mutilation, in which case the joke falls rather flat. I'll explain it sometime.

Postcard from Earth (2: mucking in, mucking out)

Dear Pater,

Nothing much to report. I have to say that I thought "Planet of the Apes" would be rather more fun than appears to be the case, but, early days. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Well you for one. Ha ha, just a little celestial humour there.

Despite being the oldest I have to do loads of household chores, clean out the chicken run, sweep up the shavings. Honestly!

Lost it recently after being told to muck out the stables and said to my biological mum, Mary, "Now look here! I am the son of God you know!"

Well, she just fixed me with her beady and responded "We are ALL the children of God, sunshine! Now get going you little mucker" or words much to that effect.

Blimey, slightly more to the wench than I had credited. Honestly, that glint put me in mind of mama, bless her. Is there a common thread running through all female entities that I had failed to spot?

Anyway, that's it for now.
Love to mama.

PS - it might be better if you did not relate the above to her.

Postcard from Earth (1: chewing the fat)

Dear Pater,

So far things are going pretty well. I'm not as little as I used to be which is good. I mean I can walk on my own and stuff.

My Earthly parents are Joseph and Mary; maybe you knew that. Worthy types, but a bit literal.

Everyone is pretty ignorant here. Recently engaged some Holy men in a little debate and ran circles around them. Now I know what you're thinking Pater ... anyone from the Realm should be able to take on a primate and all that, but still. I was good. I know I was.

My Earthlies had a bit of a purple fit because they had gone on ahead with the caravan (how was I supposed to know) and I'd got left behind. Does suggest that their parenting skills are a couple of brownie points short of illustrious ...

Anyway I expect they were dead chuffed to see me chewing the fat with the Holy ones. I got grounded all the same and have to wear a horrid itchy scratchy shirt thing as punishment.

That's all for now.
Love to mama.

PS - any chance you can do something about my internal and external parasites? Ta.

[Editor's note: an interesting change in format; anyway, let's see where it takes us.]

Entry 58: in which temptation fails to deliver

Despite having hatched a plan so cunning that foxes are still trying to understand it the outcome has been a little short of outright success. In fact, you could say that it failed. But only if you were uncharitable. Well, uncharitable and gifted with a pernicious level of honesty. But enough.

This is what Lucy reported.

It all started rather strangely. Turns out that by the time Lucy was on the scene, the lad and Ghost were already in the sticks ready to topple off high places. Now I had quite forgotten to prime the Ghost on this part of the wheeze, but some ethereal whatsit called Azazel presented his credentials to the Ghost and led the lad out into the wilderness anyway. The Ghost knows him it seems, and the name does sound vaguely familiar. Turns out he's a kind of Metatron in reverse - once used to be in the Realm, but headed for Earth long since where he has stayed. He's a shape shifter, and mostly seems to like to go around as a goat.

Personally I don't like the sound of this. Superstitious types are going to have the lot of us trotting around on cloven hooves, sprouting horns etc. Not good for the image, but Lucy pooh-poohed this as very unlikely, so allowed myself to be reassured.

Anyway, this Azazel was off being a goat elsewhere when Lucy arrived so he wasted no time and engaged the lad in a spot of temptation, standard stuff, turn rocks into bread, jump off a cliff for the fun of it, that sort of thing. The lad was in a right gloom though and was having none of it (I could have told Lucy, rocks into milk and cookies and he would have had a chance, but never mind).

Indeed, it was all a bit poignant apparently.

"Really?" I enquire. "Do tell Lucy. What transpired?"

"Well, it was quite distressing really. I'm only halfway through my temptation routine, done the loaves, done the jewels, but haven't got onto wine, women and song yet when he pipes up 'Look Lucy, stop arsing around. Why not get behind me for once? I could do with the backup.' Just like that".

"Get behind him eh? Gosh, he does sound a bit down ... What next?"

"Honestly Chief, I think we've shot our wad. Given the life expectancy on that planet, he'll be back in time for tea. Just sit this one out. That's what I would do."

Which is pretty well what I've said all along.

Not that anyone will remember.

Entry 57: in which I am a trifle disgraceful

Having cogitated awhile, I present Lucy with my cunning plan, the one that features temptation. And it goes like this.

Tempt the lad.

At first Lucy is dismissive, pointing out that the lad cannot, voluntarily, quit the biological entity in which he is embedded.

Quite so, but that is not the point of the temptation.

"What you do, Lucy is to tempt the lad, to, how shall I put it, walk off a high place. The biological entity is reduced to its component parts, and the lad is free to rematerialise in the Realm."

Lucy looks thoughtful.

"I know the lad's not about to take gold in the Intelligence Olympics, but surely even he is going to have trouble swallowing that one?"

"Ah" I say, "this is the cunning bit. Being of deietic origins, he will naturally assume that he is invulnerable. In fact, you could push that very point!"

"Well", he says, "I'm a little taken aback. In effect, you are suggesting that an entity terminates itself ... Isn't that, ethically, a tad suspect?"

"Good grief Lucy. Do you know how many entities, biological, androidal, crystalline, you name it, disappear in your average supernova?"

"You're the boss" he says.

Not before time, I think to myself, and continue "I'll have the Ghost take him out into the desert and into the mountains. Spin the old 'time to fast and reflect' line. And then you step in."

He bows and disappears.

And it's true, I do feel a teeny bit disgraceful. But I shall forgive myself.

Just this once.

Entry 56: in which extraction proves problematic

Tracked Lucy down at last.

(I never really like to ask the Archies where they have been. Seems a bit rude, somehow. I mean they're entitled to dimension-flit; it would just be nice to be told. Oh well.)

Briefed him on the rather agitated state that Mrs G has got herself into, and that she is keen on the idea that the lad be extracted and returned to the realm.

"Well Squire" says Lucy in that rather obsequious manner of his, "the problem is that the boy is embedded in a biological entity, not so?"

"Quite, Lucy - but as Mrs G points out, one is a deity. I mean, hang it all, if one can't extract the lad, what can one do?"

He pulls what can only be described as a wry face - "Not so easy I fear Squire. It's the old metastructure problem".

I become aware of a sinking feeling. Lucy's generally a doer. This is not good news. And certainly not the sort of intelligence that Mrs G will be partial to.

"Come on Lucy, options!"

"The best thing would be to kill the biological entity. That will null the embedded status and the boy will be free to dimension-shift."

One was aghast. "Good grief Lucy, I have never killed a biological entity. Well not knowingly, anyway. Plenty of road-kill as it were, but that's another matter. I just couldn't. I'm far too squeamish. And there is a sense in which ... no, no, doesn't bear thinking about. Why don't we just, well, you know, haul him out of said entity."

Alas, no joy from Lucy.

"Ah" he says, "it doesn't quite work like that Squire. As I said, it's the old metastructure problem".

"Meta thingy, yes, just remind me Lucy".

"Well the simplest case is to consider say the kind of clay tablet that the earthlings are keen on scratching on. They make marks, the marks encode information, and the information can be read by anyone who knows the code."

"Err, keep going Lucy".

"OK Squire, so there we have structure and metastructure. The structure is a clay tablet marked in a certain way. The story is the metastructure. You can think of it floating above the tablet as it were. It is of the tablet, and yet in another sense quite different. In fact, for someone who doesn't know the marks, there is no metastructure, and it amazes them that someone else can actually glean something from those marks.

"Thus it is with biological entities, at least those that have evolved some computational neural circuits. The neurons buzz away - equivalent to the clay tablets - but above that activity there is the metastructure: experience, consciousness and meaning. It's much less confusing in the realm, because we can interpret this as deionic activity, but in the 3rd dimension it remains a matter a metaphysics."

"Now I expect this has some relevance for lifting the boy" I venture.

"Indeed" Lucy continues. "The, how shall I put it, essence of the boy exists as a metastructure reflecting the neural activity of the biological entity in a kind of parallel informational dimension. Now it's true that we could 'lift' this metastructure, but if the nervous activity continues, as it will if we don't kill the entity, the informational dimension would, again, instantly mirror that nervous activity. Thus another metastructure would instantaneously come into being: in effect, Boy version 2."

"So what?"

"Well" he continues "when the entity does finally die either from accident or entropic degradation, Boy version 2 is going to turn up on your doorstep isn't he?"

Me, faintly, "You mean there would be two of them?"

He nods.

"That might be too much of a good thing ..." I suggest.

He nods again.

"Nil desperandum Lucy" I say, "I have a plan ..."

Entry 55: in which the Ghost dishes the goss

Where's an archangel when you want one? No, no, the question is rhetorical. Fact is, I can't move for tripping over cherubim, but Lucifer and the rest distinctly thin on the ground.

Digression to self: Is some sort of census required? I mean, where do they (cherubim) come from? I'm sure there are more every time I look. Or is it that they just move around a lot? Anyway, with Mrs G being a trifle exercised, this must go into the "Sometime" folder ...

No Lucy, but did bump into the Ghost.

"What ho etc.," I volunteer, but skimp on the pleasantries as I can see he is bursting with news, "What gives on the Planet of the Apes, then?"

And he catalogues the following, none of which I find reassuring:

- the lad is a right smart-arse (this is news?)
- he has grown his hair
- he is wearing sandals
- he has persuaded some lads even dimmer than himself to chuck in their day jobs and follow him around
- he is wowing the locals with miraculous performances
- he is right up the noses of various worthies, essentially by (a) being cleverer than them (this is news) and (b) by messing with the forex desk in some temple or other
- and generally raising his profile past the point where the numbers change from green to red

Now I should explain the obvious.

Obvious point the first: when you step down a dimension you can be as thick as curdled milk and still know more than the threaties.

Obvious point the second: biologically embedded entities can't do real pan-dimensional stuff, which does really come across as miraculous. Thus while the lad can do plenty of mind-control, wake the dead, get the lame walking, that sort of thing, he can't actually grow back severed limbs or give folks three eyes. He can change his density of course, but unless he plans walking on water some time (ha ha) I can't see that being much use to him.

Anyway, even I can see that it's time for Plan B, and the moment I can track Lucy down, I shall set it in motion.

All we need is a little luck and ... some temptation!

Brilliant!

Entry 54: in which Mrs G is emphatic

Mrs God, as everyone knows, can be sweetness and light. If there were lambs in the realm they would gambol at her feet, and quite possibly lick them too.

However, Mrs G is, once more, vexed, no prizes for guessing what about.

Thus, in the manner of one who is not lacking in intelligence, I have been giving her the space she needs at a trying time like this.

Imagine, then, the stinging indignation one felt, when tracked down and accused of (and I quote) "evasion".

"Now look here Mrs G" I began, in a tone of utter reasonableness.

"No, you look here!"

Cut across me. Just like that. Momentarily robbing me of the power of speech. In which no doubt welcome vacuum she continues "This has gone on quite long enough. Go and get the boy! Bring the little sod back and I mean now".

Well I launch into a reasoned description of the virtue of travel, the broadening of horizons, that sort of thing, only to be interrupted yet again.

"Excuse me" she says in a tone one would describe as being on the frosty side of frigid, "which part of my last sentence have you not understood? Where would elaboration be most useful? Perhaps you would like to attempt a paraphrase and reflect it back to me? Perhaps ..."

"Now now dear, let's be reasonable about this." My pleading tone. "The boy is embedded you know, there are natural laws here that don't want to be violated, it's not just a matter of ..."

"Hmmm". Not a good sign, when Mrs G Hmmms. Generally a prelude to biting sarcasm. As now. "Let's get this right, shall we? You are a deity, I think? Yes? Have I got that bit right? Oh good. You are in charge of this ludicrous universe. Yes? You are omnipotent. Hmmmm? That means you can do what you like rather than just bleating about natural laws. Or is there some subtlety I haven't quite grasped? So may I suggest ..."

Fortunately her words were becoming fainter and fainter, something that I can only attribute to the distance that I was busy putting between us.

"Quite so dear" I say over my shoulder, "Look, let me have a word with Lucy. He's good with this kind of unorthodox stuff. Be right back".

Well perhaps this last was a tiny exaggeration. But the idea about getting Lucy involved is a good one.

If I say so myself.

Entry 53: in which I brief the Ghost (again)

I have decided to set aside, for the moment, my unhelpful reflections on the nature of life, the universe and everything. Clearly, since I already know everything, I also know the answer about Me and Mrs G. But equally clearly, the fact that I appear not to have privileged access to this part of my psyche, suggests that the conundrum is better left unexplored.

So how to fill one's time?

What better than to call in the Ghost's debt. What debt? Well he owes me for being a total plonker. That will do.

Anyway. I tell him to hightail it back to obscurity and keep a watching brief on the lad. Who by now is almost certainly reaping the benefits of his distinctly unearthly precocity. One feels, almost with regret, that the lad and woe have a gravitational attraction for each other.

And speaking of gravity, why is it that it is so weak in this iteration of the universe? Something amiss surely?

Anyway, must resist the temptation to attend to that now.

(Besides which it might be unkind to those life forms that have already evolved to rack gravity up a couple of million times to where it should be. I mean, walking along minding your business one minute and being a very flat puddle of strawberry jam the next.)

Ah me. If one only had thumbs to twiddle. Those wretched apes have it all!

Entry 52: in which I ruminate further on the Mrs God thing

Now you must not think that I am obsessed by Mrs God, worthy though she it. It's just this hole in my memory that's nagging away at me.

While cogitating thus I stumbled across a rather frightening possibility. Has there always been a Mrs God? And if that's weird, it is any weirder than not having the faintest idea of how we met?

But this leads to further desperately worrying thoughts. Like has there always been me? It certainly feels like it but that's no criterion.

The alternative is almost worse, which is if there hasn't always been me, then how did I spring into being? Presumably some (even) higher entity created me.

But it gets worse and worse. Did a 'higher' higher entity then create the higher entity that created me? This is getting ridiculous. Even I can see an infinite regress when it's about to run me over.

The only crumb of comfort that I can glean from this is that spotty undergraduates in odd corners of the sentient universe will be beating their brains out over exactly the same thing.

Serve them right.

Entry 51: in which One is astonished

Decided that there has been enough shilly-shallying around the circumstances of my first meeting with Mrs God, so did the obvious thing and waylaid her.

Came straight out with it: "Now look here Mrs G; do you remember exactly when and how we first met?"

To my astonishment this apparently straightforward question was met with peals of laughter and the response "Oh, you are funny!"

And she wandered off cackling to herself.

I mean, for goodness sakes!

Entry 50: in which I reflect on something strange

With Mrs G assuming a higher profile once more, I have been reflecting on something a tad strange. It is this. In what circumstances did we meet?

Now bear with me on this one.

I know it's been a long time. But time for a deity is a rather slippery concept. Whereas biological creatures are swept along in what might be described as a linear stream of time, deities find themselves floating in an ocean of time. They can move this way and that, though not too far and not too fast. More usually they are prepared to move with the ebb and flow of time's tides and subtle currents.

In other words, no, it's not simply a matter of forgetting. Though I'll admit to a certain forgetfulness ...

No, it's more like, when I look into that part of what has been, I just get this kind of swirling emptiness, which defies introspection.

I could of course simply ask Mrs God if she remembers how we met, but I hesitate for two reasons

(a) she might not remember either which I find disconcerting or
(b) she might remember all too well which I find disconcerting

None of this is helped by a stupid bit of doggerel that goes round and round in my mind "God finds it odd".

Well of course I do.

Entry 49: in which the clouds have parted

Glad tidings. About time. But never mind. Anyway, the fact is that Mrs God is once again all sweetness and light. It appears that the gloom occasioned by the lad's ill-thought departure to Earth has lifted and she is once again taking an interest in the realm and its denizens.

She has (I learn through diverse and subtle means) instructed the wretched Ghost to keep some kind of watching brief over the boy and report progress. It seems that what she hears has pleased her.

The salient facts are these:

- Herod's plan to terminate the boy in his earthly form has failed
- it appears that his foster father, family in tow, headed for parts unknown - well, unknown to Herod, though known to others as Egypt. My sources have it that one of the seraphim tipped him off and headed him in that direction; strictly against regs, but can't be arsed to chase this rumour down
- lying low for a while seems to have done the trick (in that Herod has shuffled off his earthly coil) and the family are now ensconced in Nazareth where the lad's biological analogue is putting on a goodly spurt of growth
- there are disconcerting though utterly believable hints that he is growing up a proper little know-it-all. I do wish he would learn to keep a low profile, but alas, this is where these excursions of his tend to come unstuck.

Oh well. I suspect it is these very rumours of his precocity that have kindled a warm glow in Mrs G's maternal recesses and brightened her disposition.

We shall see.

Entry 48: in which we make progress, not

The adjournment gave me time to do a little cogitation. I decided that the words themselves must surely provide clues about their definitions therefore:

vision - to see what is needed or what we should be
mission - to make it happen

Well pleased with this outcome, I reconvened the meeting and ask them how they got on with their own definitions.

The same eager cherub immediately leaped to his feet and offered the following:

"We think that a vision is conceptual whereas a mission is practical ..." He tailed off, uncertainly.

"Perhaps you could give us an example" I suggested.

"Well" he ventured "our vision might be to offer outstanding customer care and our mission would then define the steps needed to achieve that. Who are our customers by the way OGO?"

The reverie into which I was comfortably settling was rudely shattered by this totally unexpected question.

"Our customers ... well yes, good question and not before time if I may say so. Now then, who has an idea of whom our customers might be?"

"Perhaps, OMO, all sentient beings?"

"Very good" I began but a hubbub soon erupted as others objected to the specificity of this and we finally settled on "bounded, self-replicating, anti-entropic entities capable of maintaining energy and chemical gradients counter to their immediate environments". Er, quite.

You will understand that by now my enthusiasm was waning exactly as theirs was apparently waxing.

I suggested that we might have time for a short brainstorm on vision before another break. A silence descended, broken alas by another cherub.

"How about, OHO, something like the preferred provider of universes everywhere?"

"Yeeessss" I began, sorry to choke him off so soon "but we're not really in the multiverse business are we? And we're only dealing with this space-time continuum. So I think there is a wee problem with the plural there."

He, however, was unwilling to relinquish multiplicity without a struggle.

"Surely OGO we could add another universe to this space-time continuum then?"

"Yeeesss, sort of, but I think you'll find that if we did that we would simply have one universe all the same, just a bigger one. After all, that's what the word means. The whole. You can't have two everythings, now can you?"

"Well how about preferred provider of the universe then?". Persistent little bugger.

"Are there any others? Providers I mean? In which case, how can we be 'preferred'? And from the philosophical point of view, given the universe just recycles itself, do we actually provide it or just sit here, watching it?"

Despite logic being on my side, I could tell that my words were as welcome as a cold and persistent nitric acid drizzle.

"May I propose, OGO, that we simply note suggestions at this stage rather than analysing them too closely?". Ah, the measured intonation and rather plummy vowels of Lucifer himself.

"But of course, Lucy, you're quite right, let's do that".

"And if I may build on the previous speaker's excellent suggestion, then how about something like 'the premier redeemer of souls supported by the finest correctional facility offering Holistic Education for Life after Life (H.E.L.L.)".

"My goodness, is that the time? Milk and cookies next door everyone".

It may be unkind of me, but I rather hope that, in the rush, poor Lucy's idea has been trampled. Perhaps terminally. If so, the only nugget in the dross.

(Memo to self "Do not convene any meeetings. Ever.")

Entry 47: in which One is stumped

The Stakeholders' Meeting. The usual shiny and eager faces, up for it. Mrs God's not among them, naturally. I tender her apologies, and the lad's.

I explain that this meeting is different and special and its purpose is to determine our Vision and Mission. They are suitably impressed, or at least that is what I take the somewhat stunned silence for.

Finally one cherub, bolder than the rest, ventures this: "OHO, pray what is the difference between a Vision and a Mission?"

I must digress at this point to explain OHO. In these parts folk generally don't call me anything unless they are feeling particularly extravagant. However, in formal meetings it is common for them to prefix remarks and questions with something like OGO, OHO, or OMO. Originally these were shortened forms of Oh Great One, Oh Holy One, Oh Mighty One and so on. Now they have become words in their own right, so I find myself addressed as OHO (as in a short laugh) for example. I'm never quite sure if the speaker is taking the piss, but it seems wiser to assume not.

Anyway, back to "OHO, pray what is the difference between a Vision and a Mission?"

I own up to a moment of awkwardness here, and realise how unprepared I am, since I haven't the foggiest.

Not a problem, I shall simply divine the answer as I usually do.

However, when I attempt to do so, astonished to find ... nothing. Now I need to explain that if one attempts to divine an answer and the divination returns "null" it means only one thing - there is no answer to that question, anywhere in the universe.

Which explains a something that has always puzzled me, namely the preponderance of consulting firms throughout the sentient universe. Most of which are called McKinsey. Another mystery.

Back to the meeting. I fix a beady eye on the cherub (whose name escapes me; well they all look the same, honestly) and announce "Our young friend here has asked an important question. I think it will be instructive for you to mull it over for a while. We will adjourn while you do so. When we resume, I look forward to some creative suggestions ..."

And head for the exit before another of the little sods bushwhacks me.

Entry 46: in which The Ghost is roasted

Well well well and three wells make a river.

The Ghost is back in the Realm, responding to the opportunity to participate in the next Stakeholders' Meeting. It takes all sorts I suppose.

Anyway, tracked him down to give him an earful about the dog's breakfast he made of the lad's "low key" introduction to Earth.

Astonished to find him breezily unperturbed by the whole thing.

"It was" he intoned "preordaned".

"Ah", say I, "and by whom may one enquire?"

"Well", he says, "not by anyone as such, just preordaned in the sense that whatever was going to happen, happened".

"As in, given you're an arse, a total balls up was inevitable you mean".

Well he did have the grace to look somewhat embarrassed at this, but what's the use? I can't stay cross with anyone for any length of time at all, let alone give them a thick ear. Which he richly deserved.

Not that he was disconcerted for long. "Water" and "duck's back" come unbidden to mind.

[Editor's note: Once again I am struck by the "Earth Centric" nature of some of the remarks, such as water and duck's back. I have a sneaky but growing suspicion that The Diaries may be syndicated throughout the inhabited universe. Perhaps in some other quarter this entry ends with "Liquid nitrogen" and "pentaquel's vlen".]

Entry 45: in which I call a Stakeholders' Meeting

In my wisdom I have decided to call a Stakeholders' Meeting. The theme, I have decided, is "Our Vision and Mission". See if I can furrow the brows of at least a few cherubim and divert the ever-so-vain archangels from self-admiration for a while.

I thought, originally, to distract Mrs God from her rather morose cogitation, but of course I had forgotten that she never attends Stakeholder Meetings. Sneaking admiration for such brazen behaviour, but alas, I have too strong a sense of obligation to do anything so sensible.

And another absentee, of course, the lad, whose apologies I suppose I can tender, "in absentia".

Only remains, now, for me to get my head around just what this visiony missiony thingy is.

Good thing I'm not stupid otherwise I'd be kicking myself for being stupid enough to have thought up this mad event in the first place.

Entry 44: she wouldn't, would she?

Those who have followed these entries will know the following facts about the boy

- he has gone space touring (again)
- this time the lucky planet is Earth
- the planet is insignificant
- no one would have heard of it but for the breezing in of Metatron
- who apparently hails from Earth
- but who is mysterious and not what he seems (I say this in an unofficial capacity)
- but I'm getting of the point
- the lad was cloned off some sorry lass called Mary
- now he's stuck there for the duration of his sorry biological life
- Mrs God is not happy
- she wants the lad back (why?)
- but see "now he's stuck there" point
- hmmm

Word is that some loony king around the Bethlehem region has taken it into his head that male babies up to the age of 2 year should be killed.

I wonder why ...

No, she wouldn't, she couldn't. Could she? Ridiculous! A silly coincidence.

Tra la la.

Entry 43: in which we reflect on the passage of time

Time's a funny old thing, in the Realm, as elsewhere. I mean millions of years can pass in the course of a rather lazy afternoon; yet seconds can drag.

This is the position in which a rather unhappy Mrs G finds herself. She frets over the few tens of years that must pass before the lad returns. You might think that she could simply get some shut-eye and lo, here he would be, but I fear it's not like that when you are shadowing an entity embedded in a biological form. The timelines are locked for the duration, and one all too soon appreciates the concept of "real time".

But, I hear you ask, could she not simply go into the future and be done with delays? Well yes, of course, but this is not something that one does lightly. There is the whole relativism issue, which personally gives me a headache and which (strictly between ourselves) I have some difficultly grasping. It's the old river and bank analogy. Are you on the bank watching the river of time go forward, or are you in the river watching time bank of time go backward, and in which of those modes are you actually standing still in time? Or going forward or going backward? I fear that's what gets me.

Of course Mrs G is good with this kind of trivia, so I'm sure she would get it right, but there are other issues. For a start she would almost certainly meet herself and I fear two rather terse Mrs Gods are much, much worse that one. No sooner would one be giving the lad verbal than the other would leap to his defense. And vice versa. It is rather more than even the gormless one deserves.

Second, synchronous returns are philosophically pretty well impossible. Return a moment too soon, and you have the meeting yourself problem all over again. Return a moment too late, and you have an gap in your personal time line which is quite enough to induce existential crises.

No, the safest thing is to spread out your picnic blanket and sit on the bank waiting for the river of time to pass the requisite number of decades (or the other way round, but we've done this already. Haven't we? Just a moment ago in the past? Ha, ha, just a little cosmic joke there).

Anyway, on the assumption that annoyance must sooner or later give way to sentimentality, I think it is time for me to chuck my hat through the door as it were, to gauge how I might be received by herself.

Yes, I know what you are thinking, but there are times when it pays to softpedal a bit on the Supreme Being thing. This is one of them.

Entry 42: in which the lad emerges, blinking

Reports have it that the lad has finally been expelled from the womb of his surrogate mother. Astonishingly just the one head, despite the Ghost's recent propensity to balls up everything that he touches.

Honchos got there with the loot it appears, dumped it and fled, hoping that by same they have placated whatever it was that caused the recent flare.

Anyway, absolutely no prospect of getting the genie back into the bottle. The world and his brother now know about the event . Well, I say that, but that's just me exaggerating. So a few dozen nomadic herdsmen, the odd inn keeper, three somewhat senile and by now considerably poorer sages and a couple of ragg-bag extras know about it.

I mean, how bad can it get? By tomorrow the Bethlehem Times will be wrapping pita breads and it will all be very old news.

Much closer to home is Mrs God and her manifest displeasure at the way things have turned out. I think that she rather hoped that, pre-birth, it might be possible to pull one out of the hat and get the lad back to the Realm, the better to give him some rather unpleasant verbal and ground him for a couple of billion years.

As it is, she's going to have to wait patiently for the duration of the life span of the biological thingy in which he is embedded.

Or wait, anyway. Patience is optional.

Entry 41: in which levels of difficulty appear

Mrs G has taken pity on me and explained that Do Soak You comes in different levels of difficulty. It seems that my problems were caused by tackling a level beyond my powers of "inference".

She says I should have started with a level called Gentle, rather than the level I did attempt which is called Intermediate. No wonder.

She herself claims to have reached the next level called Difficult. Lucy has apparently reached a level called Fiendish and hopes to graduate soon to Diabolical.

But why has no one, including Gabriel himself, come up with the obvious level, to whit, Simple? As existence itself should be, but seldom is.

Despite the explanation, for which I am of course grateful, I am in no great hurry to embrace Do Soak You again, Gentle or not.

Entry 40: in which one asks what's the point?

What with the stress of recent events, and in the confident expectation of much more to come, I have been seeking diversion.

Since everyone else in the Realm seems addicted to Do Soak You, I thought I would have a go to see if there is any point to this so-called intellectual challenge. Opened the first puzzle and divined the answers immediately. So no point whatsoever.

Was explaining this to Mrs G who was I fear completely unhelpful in her response.

"Der ..." she began, which I think is code for you are being unbelievably stupid, "You aren't supposed to divine the answers. What would be the point of that? You're supposed to infer them".

So returned dutifully to said puzzle that I might infer the answers, only to discover that it actually can't be done.

In other words, pointless, much as I suspected all along.

Entry 39: in which despair seems a measured response

Somewhere in the universe the expression "Just when things could not get worse they do" will spring unbidden to the lips of a sentient creature. In the event I should like to seek out that sentient creature and commend it for its wisdom, its economy of expression and its prescience.

Whether that event has passed or is yet to be, I plan to apprehend the expression and make it my own. Indeed, I utter it now: "Just when things could not get worse they do".

Readers will be aware of several things:
- the boy is off to do a spot of space tourism
- his mother is displeased
- the quality of my life is compromised
- said tourism was to be a low-key event
- thanks to the maladroit Ghost it is not low key
- and now the whole wretched business might as well be adorned with tinsel

So what has gone wrong? Why not ask what has gone right? The answers are much and little respectively.

First Metatron takes the opportunity to put in an appearance, not here in the Realm, oh no. Here he has been been conspicuous only by his absence. Instead he chooses to materialise on Earth, where, for reasons I cannot fathom, he wanted to be "in" on the birth of the lad as a biological entity.

Anyway, thanks to a teeny weeny error in his space-time coordinates he lands bang centre in a group of nomadic herdsmen looking after a bunch of sheep. Needless to say they are scared crapless, not only by Metatron's rather frightful appearance, but by the shower of ionised particles that accompanied him, causing the environs to light up a trifle, given it was night and all.

Instead of dematerialising pronto and leaving them to wonder if they imagined the whole thing, he starts bleating on about glad tidings etc, to whit, promulgating the very events that I am so desperately keen should be low key.

"Just when things could not get worse they do". Again! Things are now at an astonishingly low ebb. But wait! That ebb can get lower yet! Cue the Ghost.

You will recall that it is the Ghost who has done the the necessary gene splicing to cause that rather sorry virgin to become pregnant, and has been trailing the lass and her paramour as they head towards Bethlehem. What has he managed to do? Caused a massive plasma flare, that's all. OK. It does happen if you dimension-shift in a hurry. Even I have been known to set the odd bush alight in this very manner. But for goodness sakes!

This flare is relatively stable, can be seen for miles around, and looks to last days if not weeks. Even the dull hominids that inhabit Earth were unlikely to miss such as event and sure enough, it has stirred up both fear and excitement in equal measure.

I am reliably informed that some top honchos have been dispatched in the direction of the flare laden with gifts with which they are to buy-off or otherwise placate whatever supernatural happening is to be found there.

I look forward to my next meeting with the Ghost. But it is unlikely that he shares my enthusiasm.

Entry 38: in which Mrs God attempts a witticism

Still perplexed by Lucy's soul/sorl idea.

Described it to Mrs G; how he would hang on to the bad ones and do his corrective education thing and I would get to keep the good ones who would sing my praises.

"He's as mad as a brush" she declares.

"Exactly".

"I mean why would they want to sing your praises?"

I think that at times like this a dignified silence is best.

Entry 37: in which Lucy waxes strange

Lucy has been surprisingly useful lately, and clearly knows it. Thus he has felt free to bend my ear about his latest hare-brained scheme, to wit, going into the soul business.

Allow me to explain. Many biological entities have a degree of consciousness and self-awareness. This consciousness is an emergent property of neural complexity and floats, as a kind of metastructure, above the neural net that gives rise to it.

If this is confusing, consider this parallel. Biological entities are "alive", yet are composed of elements and molecules that are not themselves alive. In the same way conscious entities achieve their consciousness through the aggregate activity of neurons which are themselves not conscious.

Now all consciousness resonates with deions. This is in itself pretty trivial and "just one of those things". However, anyone in the Realm can, if they can be bothered that is, "read" that resonance and learn something of the nature of the biological entity that gave rise to it. Such resonance has a half-life of perhaps 20 billion years, so some traces usually last all the way through to the next collapse.

Now you may feel, with the number of conscious entities around in the universe, that the deion field would get pretty saturated; but with a inverse 4D Fourier Transform it is simple enough to pick out the pattern characteristic of any particular entity. But who could be arsed?

Well, it appears that Lucy could; he calls the patterns "souls".

"Why souls?" I ask.

"Well" he says "it stands for Self-aware Organic Unredeemed Lifeforms".

"You've lost me there Lucy" I say "In what sense Unredeemed?"

"Ah" he says, all smug as per, "once we run the Transform and capture a pattern, we have redeemed it. Much as you might redeem a coupon. I think we should set up a working party, we could call them Redeemers, whose job it would be systematically to find and redeem souls".

Reluctant to confess that I don't know what a coupon is, so press on.

"Wouldn't that make them sorls?" I ask. Lucy looks utterly baffled. "Well" I say, in the manner of one producing a trump card, "they'd be Self-aware Organic Redeemed Lifeforms, n'est-ce pas?"

Alas he fails to rise to this so I ask the blindingly obvious question "But Lucy, why bother?".

Now it's his turn to produce the trump, or so he thinks, for he declares some souls / sorls have been 'good' in the course of their biological lives and others have been 'bad'.

"Well, almost certainly ... your point being?"

"We could divide them. You could keep the good ones who would sing your praises and stuff and I'd take the bad ones. I could set up a kind of correctional facility, put them straight, that sort of thing. I'm thinking of calling it 'Holistic Education for Life after Life', or hell for short. I think it would be a jolly wheeze".

By now I had a blinding headache, made my excuses and left. Lucy worries me. He has this quite unhealthy obsession with right and wrong, and especially wrong. Never happier than when there is a spot of fornication going on.

Me? I'm more of a live and let live type. But if I know Lucy, he's not about to let this one drop.

How utterly dull.

[Editor's note: Can this be a reference to Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768 - 1830)? According to Wiki he did develop some interesting mathematics to do frequency analysis. Or just another cosmic coincidence?]

Entry 36: Lucy pulls one out of the hat

Glad tidings. Lucy has done the MC magic. One Joseph has, surprise surprise, decided that Mary is the one for him, up the spout or no.

Better still, Lucy seems to have eased them out of town on the pretext of some census or other, and away from her zealous family so there is some prospect that phase two can proceed with less drama than phase one. I think the Ghost has got the message at last, ref "low key". Entourage last seen heading in the direction of Bethlehem with the Ghost in hover mode. Can't let go of his biological experiments, it seems, until they have come to fruition. Propably wants to see if the boy does actually have two heads.

Mrs G still whingeing on about getting the lad back home. The trouble, alas, is that "embedded" as he is in a biological entity, he is there for the duration, which is to say, for the course of its natural life. This she seems reluctant to accept. "Organise a miscarriage" she says.

Honestly! Ethics and all that. Please.

Entry 35: in which my feeble editor makes his excuses

An unwelcome fact has come to my attention; my earthly editor has not been keeping these posts going at the kind of clip I am entitled to expect. There can be no excuse given that all he has to do is upload some text, I have already created, to blogoland.

Unless the sniveling wretch gets his act together I will visit various plagues of positively biblical proportions upon him. Even though I am quite nice.

However, I am, as ever, magnanimous. I will concede that the combination of renovation and visiting family has rather eroded his free time. If he promises to extract his digit from whatever sphincter it is embedded in, pronto, I will forgive. Perhaps.

Editor's note 1: He's got me dead to rights. What can I say?

Editor's note 2: So who's writing this text anyway? How come there is an entry, in the Diaries, complaining about my tardiness? Was this foreseen? Spooky!

Entry 34: in which it all starts to unravel

I am very tempted to say "Dear God". Instead I shall confine myself to dearie me and bleeding bollocking heck. Which part of "low key" does that effing Ghost not understand?

He finds a woman all right, with which to do the cloning /gene-splicing magic on behalf of the lad, but which woman? Well, sight unseen, you're going to say some old biddy with 17 kids who lost count years ago and who is not going to turn too much of a hair, nor her husband either, when some new sprog puts in an appearance.

Err, no. Whatever passes for intelligence in the Ghost does not stretch that far it appears.

Instead he puts a virgin, I repeat a VIRGIN up the spout. The wretched child is not even married. And he chooses the Middle East, the one place on the entire planet where the locals like nothing better than stoning to death those who have strayed from the straight and narrow.

Thus the life expectancy of Mary, for such is the wretch's name, is about 15 rather unpleasant minutes once her condition becomes known to her loving family.

Should Mrs God get wind of all this, she will spend most of eternity making me wish that I could simply curl up in a corner and die. I do envy biological life forms sometimes.

Ghost nowhere to be seen, quell surprise. However for once Lucifer has turned up trumps and in that rather suave urbane manner suggested "Leave it to me Squire".

"What's the plan?" I ask.

"Nip over and exercise a wee bit of MC where it will do most good."

"Come on Lucy, do tell, enough of the mystery already".

"Well", he says, "I've got this yokel in my sights. He is going to find Mary strangely alluring. So much so that minor details like her unfortunate condition will seem trifling. Once they're hitched, well, they can take it from there".

"Good stuff Lucy, well get cracking before the poor lass comes a cropper. And um ..." somewhat gruffly "do appreciate it".

No sooner said that done, and he was off to work his magic on some poor sod. Way of the world, eh? Well that world, anyway.

Alas, it's a racing certainty that this sorry affair is not over yet.

[Editor's note: It appears that MC stands for Mind Control. Discussed briefly here.]

Entry 33: in which Mrs God is totally unreasonable

Well the Ghost and the lad have disappeared, last known sighting headed in the direction of a piddling planet called Earth. At least the Ghost has enough sense to get this crazy adventure off to a good start, but once the lad goes solo who knows what will happen? Actually I do - only metaphorically you understand; I don't fancy a peak into the future on this occasion any more than I usually do.

Found Mrs G immersed in Do Soak You, brow somewhat furrowed as she wrestled with rows and columns, doing something cerebral, but not sure what exactly. If you follow this journal on a regular basis you will know that Do Soak You and I are strangers to one other.

Chose my moment to tell her that the lad has gone AWOL only to reap a torrent of most unreasonable abuse. Was I crazy? Didn't I know what was likely to happen? Who would tuck him in at night? If I had given it a moment's thought I would have known she would not approve etc etc.

Well, for Pete's sake, I'm not a sodding telepath ... well actually I am but that's not the point. Probing the recesses of Mrs G's mind is not a task to be undertaken lightly, or for those delicately constituted (as I am).

In vain did I point out he's old enough to know what he's doing, that the Ghost is riding shotgun etc. No, I am officially a complete arse! Somewhat stung by this, but since Mrs G is clearly temporarily unhinged have decided not to take offense. Be magnanimous, that sort of thing.

Get him back? How exactly? He's probably already a blastocyst. Anyway, will have to wait for the Ghost to report back before any kind of corrective action can be contemplated.

Ah, who knows. Maybe they strayed? Got distracted? Lost their way?

I should be so lucky.

Entry 32: in which I learn more and less than I want to

Found Gabriel surrounded by the chattering classes, viz., Cherubim. I am getting quite paranoid about the little sods. Whenever I arrive, two things happen. First, the chattering ceases - for which one could be grateful - but which makes one feel that they have been talking about one. Second they rather melt away, much like snowflakes on a hot spade. Well I say that, but what kind of idiot stands around in a snowstorm with a hot spade?

However spades, hot or cold, are not the point, neither are snowflakes. Where was I? Oh yes, well in a minute or two Gabriel and I pretty well had the space to ourselves, and by way of making polite conversation I asked him to run this Do Soak You thing past me.

Big mistake. Ere long I was thoroughly double glazed but having opened the spigot he seemed loath to close it and the torrent of numerology just kept washing over me.

In an effort to stem the flow asked Gabby if he had seen anything of the Meta creature, but no.

Strange.

Entry 31: in which I leave well enough alone

Found Mrs G humming to herself and completely immersed in a number game invented, it appears, by Gabriel. Called 'Do Soak You' or some such rum title. All the rage in the Realm. Don't they have anything better to do?

Anyway, tiptoed away. No need to disturb her equilibrium. Might just go and have a friendly with Gabriel.

Entry 30: in which I brief the Ghost

Strange cove, the Ghost. Doesn't say a lot; in fact I'm hard pressed, now that I think about it, to know if I've ever heard it utter a word. Very slippery, dimensionally speaking. Of all of us it flits too and fro with minimal effort. It's a capable little thing and friendly too.

"So this is the deal" I say, "accompany the lad to Earth so that he does actually find it and achieve the following:
- find a quiet illiterate carrier who won't make a fuss
- clone as a male
- no bells, whistles, alarums etc. Strictly low key stuff
- leave again"

It signified assent in that strange way it does and off it went in search of the boy. I went in search of Mrs G to see if she has any inkling of this mad caper yet.

Entry 29: in which the boy plans his earthly excursion

Now those who follow this journal will know that when it comes to entities I admire and respect, Mrs G is right up there in the vanguard. I seek her counsel at every opportunity, bounce ideas off her, test my theories, spin some philosophy and prototype my jokes.

Curiously she often maintains a silence during these intellectual meanderings, but it matters little. The important thing is her empathy and support. This may not be explicitly proffered but is, I am certain, always there.

However on the matter of the boy and his penchant for celestial excursions I prefer to stay silent. He knows his own mind; or at least I am charitable enough to believe so, and I think it better that he get on with it rather than worry his mother to no avail.

We had a long discussion about the particular form he will take on Earth. Given that he wishes his stay to be of some duration, he has opted to take on human form. I insisted that he go the cloning route as the one least suspect from the ethical standpoint.

"But Pater" he objected "is it not the female monkeys who bear the young?"

"Your point being ... ?"

"Well doesn't that mean I'd be a girlie too?"

"Your point being ... ?"

"Well Lucy's told me all about what being a girl entails on that planet and ... " He broke off going pink and pale by turns. "I'm simply not having it! There are fluids involved and cavities and things and, well it sounds absolutely horrid and far too biological for my liking. I want to be a boy".

Not having it? This is so tiresome! I mean who does he think he is?

"You'll have to take the Ghost with you then. He'll do the necessary gene splicing, but don't blame me if you end up with two heads".

"Oh thank you Pater, you are a darling" and off he skipped in search of the ghost. A darling? That boy worries me sometimes.

"There are rules" I called after his rapidly diminishing form, but he chose not to hear me. Never mind, I'll nobble the Ghost.

And how curious that, contrary to their beliefs, instead of them being made in my image, one of us is about to be made in theirs.

Entry 28: on making an appearance, elsewhere

I think I have explained that dimension shifting is not as easy as it looks. Well, it's not exactly difficult, just unpredictable. Essentially the way in which one intersects another dimension will determine how one looks. Given that one is already a complex hyper-entity, the possibilities are legion.

Let me illustrate with an example. Suppose that a common or garden elephant, a simple 3D one, is intersected by a 2D plane. You could get something like this, not the elephant you were expecting. You would scarcely expect simple Tooties to work out from six ellipses what the original creature looks like - or even that they are dealing with one entity rather than many.

So visiting places in the universe, as oneself, is usually not on (though it can be entertaining).

Here are the methods that I find best:

1. Create a simple particle cloud in the shape of the entity you wish to project. This is not difficult, generally using dust and static electricity will do. There are a few problems. The dust cloud, though dense, can be somewhat transparent giving rise to reports of ghostly sightings and so on. If the static discharges too quickly the whole thing disintegrates giving rise to a pile of dust, considerable alarm and reports of ghostly sightings (again). The colour can be difficult to get right. But, for cheap and cheerful, you can't beat it.
2. More difficult is to assemble the actual molecules of which the creature would be composed. OK, you need an outrageous number of them but at least you get weak nuclear forces working in your favour, and if you get the mix right, it will actually start functioning correctly in a biochemical sense. I say if you get it right, but that's easier said than done because of particle uncertainty. The whole thing can go sludgy and make a very bad mess of someone's carpet. Spontaneous combustion is another side effect giving rise to more alurums and rumour.
3. I'll group these two together because they are quite close. The first is to exercise mind-control over an existing entity, so it will do your work for you. The second is to just hijack the biological computer for a while and drive the entity. The effects are similar, but the second method is better for a protracted project. Downside of both is a high incidence of schizophrenia afterwards, especially for the mind control lot. I mean, they can say "they made me do it" till they are blue in the face, but no one believes them.
4. Best of all for any long term work is to either take over an embryo or to clone one. Then get on with the project for the natural life term of the entity concerned. Personally I think that taking an embryo over is ethically very suspect. I generally insist on cloning from a germ cell that was never going to be fertilised anyway, and use that.

My reasons for dwelling on these is the boy. He's got itchy feet again, and what with Metatron's visit and all, he's hot to trot and it's Earth that's in his sights. He has a very short memory, that lad. I cannot think of one of his excursions that has not ended exquisitely badly, but he always thinks it will be better next time.

"Pater, they sound so quaint, I think I'm going to love them".

Dear oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Entry 27: on the paradox of seeing the future

I sometimes wonder if this omnipotence thing is all it's cracked up to be. Yes, it's important for my street cred, but after that?

Let me give you an example. Seeing the future. Sounds useful? Not as much as you might think.

Consider the case of a man standing under an apple tree. Let's say he can see one minute into the future and he sees that in a minute from now an apple is going to fall on his head.

He doesn't like the idea of this so he steps to the side and a minute later the apple falls harmlessly to the ground just where he had been standing.

So just what future was the man seeing? He saw an apple was to fall on his head. Actually, the apple did not fall on his head, because he stepped aside, so how come he did not see that future instead?

But then, if he had seen that future, he would not have stepped aside, and so the apple would have hit him on the head after all. So whichever future he sees, it tends to be the opposite to the future that actually unfolds.

I fear that simply by knowing the future you tend to change it. Or even worse both futures now co-exist, each in its own different time-line and you have actually caused a parallel universe to come to into existence.

These reflections brought on by the lad planning a spot of space tourism and wanting to know how it will turn out. "Badly" is the answer, and I don't need to peek into the future to know that.

More on this soon, when I am feeling less rattled.

Entry 26: in which One is a monkey, apparently

Well the Metatronic social event has come and gone, thanks be. Mrs G all in a twitter, straightening this, tidying that. Felt like reminding her that he's "only" an archangel, but didn't want to push my luck. She laments the shortage of good company.

He arrived bearing a bunch of flowering things, showers of compliments, could have given Lucy a run for his money. Mrs G quite aglow with it all, as per.

Even the lad turned up, and decided to sit in on it.

Actually I was quite interested to get the goss straight from the horse's mouth as it were. Turns out that the denizens of Earth are quite religious just as Lucy predicted eons ago. Mostly multiple gods, which I personally think is a good thing, but a few religions promoting the idea of one "true" god which is far more worrying.

Now I know what you're thinking - why wouldn't a deity like me be pleased with one-true-god type religion? OK, let's back up a bit. Suppose we had a religious tradition of sun god and a moon god. Well strictly speaking I'm neither of those. So if in this tradition they decided to ditch the sun god and keep the moon god as the one true god, that would not automatically be me would it?

Here's another thing I've often noticed. Neighbours who have lots of gods to go around don't generally quarrel over them. But when those same neighbours each have one true god, look out. You can't say knife before they start ramming their true gods down each other's throats.

I digress.

Metatron also told me that some earthlings believe that I have made them, and I quote, "in my own image". The utter cosmic arrogance implicit in this quite took my breath away. I asked him to take a close look at me and then tell me which part of me looks like a naked ape. He had to admit that there was no part of me that looks much like a naked ape, or even like a hyper-ape.

Tore off in a fury to show the bloody earthlings what I do look like but only succeed in setting a bush on fire and scaring the crap out of a local called Moses.

This put me in good humour which evaporated as soon as I remembered where I should be. Returned at once to a slightly frosty Mrs G who said that Metatron had made his excuses and left shortly thereafter and did I have any inkling how rude I had been?

Tempting to say "Yes, but am I bothered?". Well tempting for all of 2 milliseconds, then sanity returned. I looked suitably contrite instead.

Monkey eh? But then again, am I bothered?

Entry 25: in which Lucifer is obsessed by fornication

Twiddling my thumbs when Lucy hoves into view. As always it is perfectly apparent that, despite a contrived casualness, he has something on his mind.

After a bit of round the houses he gets down to it.

"Look", he says, "I'm not altogether happy about what's happening on Earth".

Did my best not to explode and more or less succeeded. Earth this, Earth that, Earth the other. For Pete's sake, enough is enough. That swine Metatron has a lot to answer for.

"Lucy ..." I begin, but for once he cuts across me.

"No, no, I think you need to hear this. I'm not sure how to put say it, but, well, the fact is that some of them have been fornicating".

I simply stared.

"You know, doing it". Pause. "With each other".

"Lucy", I say, "which part of self replication don't you understand?"

Now it's his turn to stare.

"That's what they do" I continue. "They make copies of each other. And they do it by swapping genetic material. Generally by inserting bits of themselves into one another. Now you can call it fornication if you like, and clearly you do, but they've being doing 'it', as you so quaintly put it, since the first molecules starting dividing in the primordial soup."

"Don't you think they should, well you know, be punished?"

"Good grief - for what? It's completely self evident that the only things left on the planet are there because they self-replicate. Anything that didn't, isn't".

I felt like adding "Duh" but thought that would be a bit mean. Where oh where is this self-righteous twaddle coming from? As though I didn't know. On cue:

"Well Enoch says ..."

"Look Lucy, thanks and all that, but the fact is I've got these, er, universe type things I've got to get on with. Lot's of quantum irregularities, that sort of thing. But another time? Great!"

And I disappear faster than an imploding singularity.

Entry 24: in which One is confronted with the madness of crowds

Well sod me, that's all I can say.

Locate one miserable galaxy in a dusty and far flung corner of the universe. In that miserable galaxy, find one star out of 100,000,000,000 other stars. Around that miserable star, locate a few bits of rock in orbit. Or more specifically find the 3rd one out from the sun (sounds familiar, somehow?). Anyway, find the 3rd bleeding rock and call the sodding thing Earth.

Now I ask you, could you possibly, in your wildest dreams, think of anything less significant? Exactly!

So why, for the love of me, is everyone getting so excited about it? The cherubim, as fickle as ... well metaphors fail me for the moment, but that's not the point, suddenly Silicon Planet with it's poor little silicon creatures being melted into glass is passé. Today, the winner of Adopt a Planet is, yes, you guessed it, Earth.

And why? Because of the arrival of one Metatron, aka Enoch. Whose fetching up on these shores is highly suspect.

Mrs God has proved to be no more resilient than the rest, sadly, so flavour of the epoch will be coming round for a spot of social. That's good - Enoch the Epoch. Will have to keep that to myself or risk a scolding. Mrs G has specifically asked me to "behave myself".

As though I am ever anything other than sweetness and light.

Entry 23: in which I is the Daddy, it appears

Well the arrival of Metatron has certainly resulted in a good deal of twitter and jitter. Much focus too, on Earth, from whence he apparently hails. Mrs G has yet to meet old Meta and she will wait a while longer if I have anything to do with it. However she agitates constantly saying we must have him round for drinks and nibbles, it's only polite. Ha.

Found the boy in a sulk. Bit of delicate probing revealed the following, viz, that I have chosen Meta as some kind of deputy and why him over me etc etc. Well I was able to disabuse him of that notion and he bustled off cheerfully enough, but leaving me fretting about who is putting this nonsense about and why.

Hate a scene, but decided to beard Meta and sort this out for once and for all (which in these parts actually means for all).

Tracked him down without much difficulty - follow the sounds of chattering cherabim and you won't go too far wrong. It's hard to describe them politely, so I'll not bother and simply say that they are sensatomaniacs.

So, face to face we are, and he immediately starts singing my praises - talk about stereotypical behaviour - full of protestations about how much he loves me and so on.

"That's quite enough of that" I say sternly; absolutely loathe and detest these extravagant displays. "I'll come to the point. There is careless talk doing the rounds about what you might or might not do in The Realm and I can't say I like what I hear". Actually I quite impressed myself, and annoyed that Mrs G should miss my display of fireworks.

"If you have a role here" I continue "you'll learn about it from me. In the meantime consider yourself logged in with Guest status only".

Well stone the crows. Instead of giving me verbal, which I have to admit I was fully expecting, he announces "You is the Daddy and I is your bitch".

What a shower! Torn between squirming with embarrassment and quite enjoying the looks of furtive respect from those cherubs who had not already scuttled off. Although I did not feel I was in a hole, I decided that it would be a good idea to stop digging all the same, and I exited with as much dignity as I could muster.

Might just OK the invite from Mrs G after all.

Entry 22: in which I meet Metratron and am rightly dismayed

Well, I scarcely know where to begin. Omnipresent I may be, but omniattentive I clearly am not. Take your eye off the ball for 65 million years and see what happens?

Turns out that the splendid collection of reptiles I have been admiring are gone, wiped out by a meteorite. And been replaced by a bunch of hairy-arsed monkeys. Quite extraordinary.

Oh it's not all doom and gloom. There were survivors and they are running around now in the guise of birds, and especially chickens. You only have to look at their scaly legs and the classic three-toed stance to see that. But talk about opportunism! Who would have believed that those insignificant beetle chrunching shrews would have ended up running the place?

I should explain that all this emerged thanks to a not entirely welcome visit from Lucifer and A.N. Other. By appearances an archangel, but not one that I've ever clapped eyes on.

"I'd like to introduce Metatron" says Lucy.

Well perhaps he would, but whether I want to receive him is quite another matter. I don't like the look of him one little bit. A stare like chilled water. And that's another thing. Most entities in The Realm don't stare at me. He does. Clearly not one of us.

Anyway, I buttonhole Lucy and hiss at him "Who is this wretch and where is he from?"

"Well", says Lucy, "he says he's from Earth and that he used to someone called Enoch".

"And Earth is ...?" I ask, sotto voce you understand, while fixing a beady on Mr Metatron who is kicking his heels in the middle distance.

And this is when he delivers his bombshell, about Reptile Planet, the meteorite and all that. Turns out that the monkeys have learnt to speak and call the planet "Earth" because that's what it's made of (they're a literal lot it seems).

Well that's as may be, but one thing I do know is that nothing from the Universe has simply strolled into The Realm before, because, as I've been explaining to the lad, this dimension simply doesn't exist there. Something stinks and it isn't me.

Entry 21: in which We kick around a hypersphere

"Pater" says the boy.

"Hmmm?"

"This pink string disc thing ... hey I like it, it's got a ring! Pink string disc thing! Or we could ping pink string, or ... "

"Yes, yes, what about pink string?"

"Well you know how there's this 2D chap that we plop onto a 3D world and then first he's outside his pink string disc thing and then suddenly he's inside it and it all seems very magical ..."

"Yesss ..."

"Well you said to extend that by another dimension and Bob would be my uncle, who is Bob by the way?"

"Never mind Bob!"

"Yes, well anyway I've given it a lot of thought and can you explain it to me please?"

Good grief, what is the point of planting seeds of wisdom when they wither on the vine if I may mix my metaphors a bit. I sigh but continue:

"Right, so essentially we have our magical ball of pink string, the one that won't run out, and this time we plonk Mr 3D on a small 4D hypersphere. Well just as Mr 2D on the north pole of a 3D planet looked around him and thought he was on a familiar 2D plane, so Mr 3D looks around him and concludes he's on a familiar 3D sphere.

"His job is just to walk around and around the (initially small) sphere, playing out the pink string as he goes. As he does so, the sphere gets covered with pink string and starts to get bigger and bigger, just like one of those 'biggest ball of string in the world' things.

"He keeps going and the sphere gets bigger and bigger, huge in fact, so that the horizon is a very distant thing. But he just keeps going.

"After a very long time he gets a very big surprise; one that is possibly in 'nasty shock' category. He was on the outside of a very large pink sphere, but suddely he finds himself on the inside of a pink hollow, and what's more, a hollow that gets smaller and smaller the longer he continues.

"Just as Mr 2D could not understand how he went from being on the outside of a disc to being on the inside of the same disc (which to us, from a 3D persepective, was perfectly obvious), so Mr 3D simply cannot understand how he went from being on the outside of a sphere to its inside".

A long pause.

"Which to us, from a 4D perspective is perfectly obvious".

Another long pause.

Finally he pipes up "I'd give a lot to see one of those 'biggest ball of string in the world' things."

Wouldn't we all? Mercifully I am almost certain I hear Mrs G's dulcet tones requesting my presence and exit stage left.

Entry 20: in which We visit alternative worlds

I have been by turns irritable and frustrated by this whole dimensional conundrum. I think an explanation is in order.

The first thing to realise is that for an n-dimensional entity, higher dimensions do not exist, or if divined, make no real sense. However, all lower dimensions can be apprehended or comprehended. If an n-dimensional entity is able to interact with lower dimensions, that interaction will appear magical to entities in those lower dimensions, as we shall see shortly.

So let's explore some dimensions to see how this thing works.

A zero dimensional world is a point of infinite smallness. Let us call that world Zut; it is populated by Zuties. Zuties too are points of infinitely small size. They cannot move in any direction. The universe, before a big bang, is a bit like Zut.



Now consider a one-dimensional world. This world is a line of infinite length, but no thickness. We will call it Wun. It is populated by Wunies. Wunies resemble arrows, and a Wunie is born as a Left Arrow or a Right Arrow. Wunies can move along the line that is Wun, but they obviously cannot turn around; that would require a plane. Thus you are left or a right arrow for life.

Note that if Wun intersects Zut, and arrows move through it, Zuties have the strange experience of having points come into existence apparently from nowhere, and then going out of existence again. We however would simply see that as an arrow in transit through Zut.

OK, up a step to the two-dimensional world that is Too, populated by Tooties. It is an infinitely thin plane, that extends to infinity in both X and Y. Tooties are circle creatures of fixed size.

If arrow creatures lived here they would suddenly be freed from the constraints of living in a line; they could turn by rotating in the plane. Thus Lefties and Righties could "transform" into each other, which would be considered miraculous on Wun, but is commonplace on Too.

Tooties can move in any direction on the plane, but they cannot change size.

Now consider a three dimensional world called Threa. It has X, Y and Z dimensions and is populated by bubble creatures called Threaties. As Threaties float up and down, they might pass through the invisible plane that is Too. When a sphere intersects a plane, it is represented in that plane by a circle; the size will depend on just where the plane intersects the bubble. Thus the Tooties of Too witness a miracle. A tiny spot becomes a circle, becomes a bigger circle, becomes a small circle, then a spot, then disappears.



On Too this is impossible, because Tooties are of fixed size. But this is commonplace on Threa.

By much the same token when I interact with the three dimensional universe the effects are often paradoxical and baffling to any three dimensional creature who happens to witness such. The same is true for other four dimensional elements.

For example, in this realm we have strings, which intersect the third dimension in the form of particles. Here we have tachyons, which in the third dimension show as photons and so on.

In the third dimension I am present everywhere simultaneously, which sounds like a big deal, but is simply a dimensional artifact. I mean it's handy, don't get me wrong, because you don't actually have to go anywhere since you're already there. But in reality you tend to focus on one place or another, not everything at once. This is what I was trying to explain to Mrs G. In our realm, I'm in one place at a time, same as anyone else.

As for actually doing anything with the universe (or bits of it), well that's another matter entirely. For a start, these cross-dimensional interactions are extremely weak. If it wasn't for deions I'm not even sure they would be possible.

Second, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you really want to stop two planets colliding, or some tectonic plates from slipping, you have to lay in outrageous amounts of energy. We're dealing with a physical universe here. It's not playdough. Plus the books need to be balanced, which means offsetting energy use in one place with anti-energy in another and all the deion shuffling that implies.

It's not just a matter, as those tedious little cherubs think, of saying to a volcanic chain "Look chaps, could you keep it down a bit, what?" It just doesn't, er, work like that.

Dear oh dear. Sometimes I find the expectations that various lobbies have of me are quite exhausting. Perhaps the boy has a point after all. Retirement is starting to look like an attractive option.

Entry 19: on omnipotence

Those wretched cherubim. What they, and the rest of the free-loaders that inhabit My realm have no idea about, is how difficult this omnipotence thing is. (Where do the little buggers come from? - sorry that's rhetorical, no one actually seems to know).

Sought solace by having a good gripe about cosmic responsibilities to Mrs God. She's a good soul, if a trifle inattentive. This latter tendency masked by a ready stream of platitudes, served up by autopilot. Mind you, when I'm in one of my moods, like now, platitudes are better than nothing.

"Well, you know I'm omnipotent ..." I said as a lead-in.

She sniffed. Or possibly snorted. "Really dear?"

"And omnipresent".

"Except when I'm looking for you" came her tart reply.

Well, you can see the kind of thing I'm up against. For goodness sake! I never said I was omnipresent in this dimension. If I was the sodding cherubim wouldn't have to come looking for Me, would they? Doesn't anyone but Me take the time and trouble to understand dimensional topology?

Entry 18: in which Cherubim are sent packing

Good grief. Just when I think that eternity is dull, it suddenly gets duller.

That's right, another delegation. This time a bunch of soppy cherubim who seem to have adopted a planet with cute (their description) silicon-based life forms. Alas, said planet is tearing itself apart with a hefty bout of vulcanism, silicon life forms are reverting back to sand (well, glass actually) and will I please do something about it.

Well there are just two wee problems (a) I'm philosophically opposed to interventionism as anyone who pays me the slightest heed should know and (b) doing anything in a dimension other than your own is a tad tricky. Now I don't like to overplay the latter because I have a reputation to uphold, so I said I would give it some thought and it would help me a lot if they would go away and produce some drawings of said life forms.

This seemed to divert them a bit and off they went chattering happily like a bunch of happy chattering things. With any luck, they'll forget all about it; cherubim have remarkably short attention spans.

Entry 17: In which One is made to feel One's age

Sitting around with not much to do when the lad mooches in with Lucy trailing behind. Now I've seen this sort of thing before and it is invariably the case that while Lucy may not be in the vanguard, the visitation will have been prompted by him.

After the usual rather drawn out pleasantries they get to the point, or at least the lad does.

"Well I've been thinking ....."

(Chance would be a fine thing). "Hmmmm?"

"Well it's like this. I mean, you know, time passes, none of us is getting any younger, I've learnt all I'm going to and stuff."

Not quite sure where this is going, but see Lucy shifting his feet and gazing off into the distance. Not a good sign. "Hmmm?"

"Well, I mean, perhaps we should talk, you know, just maybe start thinking about succession planning".

"Succession planning?"

"Yes, you know, for when you retire and when I eventually take over."

There was a pregnant pause. "Son, you haven't quite got the hang of this immortality thing have you?"

And they wandered off.

Entry 16: in which We explore other dimensions

Finally found the words it would take to explain "it" to the boy. Tracked him down staring into space, actually rather than figuratively.

It's all a matter of spatial dimensions I explained. Stick to the spatial; don't bet bogged down with time, curvature or flaxotomy. In essence, the universe we're tracking has three spatial dimensions, while we deities exist in four. That means that they exist in our space, but we don't exist in theirs.

Blank.

We can see them, but they can't see us.

More blank.

It means that that which is commonplace in our space would be baffling in their space. Actually I could see it was baffling in his space too, so I led with the following simplified illustration, contrasting two and three dimensions along these lines:

"Imagine a two dimensional creature dropped at the north pole of a three-dimensional planet. At first glance, this would feel like his old familiar two-dimensional world - looking around him he would see a flat plane extending (apparently) to infinity in all directions. So far, so good.

"Now we put a peg in the ground and give him a ball of pink string (magically, this will not run out). We ask him to walk around the peg and to play out the string as he goes. He is to stay on the outside of the string, and just to keep going. Well as he does this, the string forms an ever-bigger pink disc, and he is on the outside, walking along the perimeter. As time passes, the pink disc becomes very big, and he loses sight of the peg, but he keeps going.

"From our three-dimensional perspective we see him covering the northern hemisphere with pink string. He is still walking round and round it, playing out the pink string, and in this fashion works his way slowly down the planet. He reaches the equator, and then he is past it. Mr 2-D thinks, reasonably enough, that he is still on the outside of very large flat disc of pink string.

"Imagine his astonishment when, as he nears the south pole, he discovers that, far from being on the outside of the disc of string, as he was when he started, he is now inside it.

"To him, thinking in 2-D, this seems crazy or miraculous. To us, thinking in 3-D, it is obvious and inevitable. Now extend that thinking by another dimension and Bob's your uncle".

There was a long silence. "Pink, eh?" he said as he wandered off to find more milk and cookies.

Entry 15: in which Mrs God is unhelpful

I had been wrestling with the boy's question; the one that , in effect, asks what we are "in". Asked Mrs God her views on what we are in - "The Mire" was her unhelpful reply, but it seemed to amuse her enormously and she spent most of the next millenium cackling at her own wit.

Now I like a joke as much as the next entity, or perhaps marginally less; OK, quite a lot less, but that's not the point. To be witty you have to be more than, oh I don't know, infantile.

And I've been distracted. Oh well, another time.

Entry 14: in which the boy asks a good question

I was staring into a mirror reflecting (little bit of humour there) when the boy appeared. Now I own up to having a soft spot for the boy. He may be a couple of choristers short of a choir, but he's basically a good lad.

After a little bit of this and a little bit of that he gets around to what is on his mind and it is along these lines:

"This universe business"

"Yeees" I respond cautiously

"Watching the big bang and so on ..."

"Yeees ..."

"The creation of space and time in a single tumultuous event ..."

My word, he is on a roll, "Yeees ... "

"Well, if we're watching and birth of the universe, and the creation of space and time and all that, then we can't be 'in' that universe can we? So what's the new universe 'in' that we're 'in', so we can be watching it, but not part of it, if you see what I mean ...?" His voice trails away.

Well naturally I see what he means. That's the curse of being a deity. But, bleeding heck, I wasn't expecting this.

"Well, there is an answer, and it's a jolly good one, but why don't we head for the milk and cookies right now while I think of an equally good way to divert your attention?"

Well, actually, I didn't say all of that, not the last bit anyway, but it did the trick. Now I have to find some simple way of dishing up the meaning of life, the universe and everything. Bugger.

Entry 13: in which Mrs G waxes curious

Mrs G surprised me somewhat by asking how life was going. At first I took this to be a pleasantry about my personal disposition, but no, it actually was a question about life.

Was I pleased that, on some planets, this had progressed beyond the bacterial form? Well, to be honest, the answer is mostly "no".

I never have any trouble with bacteria while complex forms almost invariably do cause me grief. Not for the obvious reasons - which is to say lending an ear to their winging and whining, saving them from this or that catastrophe or giving a toss about whether they are good or bad (I mean, try defining it). Those who have followed my journal so far will know that intervention in the affairs of entities is a Very Bad Idea. No, the grief comes from my bunch of layabout stakeholders who for some reason do seem to give a rat's arse. More on that later.

I had to tick Mrs G off for her use of "progressed". This smacks of what one can only charitably call "complexism", or an irrational admiration of complex organisms. To go from your standard molecule to self-replication molecules to a living bacterium is a hefty haul. To glue a couple of trillion of them together to make a "complex" organism is pretty simple.

To make clear what I mean, if getting to the bacterial stage is this difficult:
/----/----/----/----/----/
then getting to the gin and tonic stage only takes us to here:
/----/----/----/----/----/--

Perplexed and somewhat aggrieved to find that by the time I had finished my explanation Mrs G had wandered off to dimensions unknown.

[Editor's note: it seems increasingly clear that the language of the journal is Earth-centric, suggesting that its publication here was not a spur of the moment decision. While I suppose it is possible, perhaps even likely, that rats have arses elsewhere in the universe, the reference to "gin and tonic" seems too specific to be a coincidence. On the other hand, the universe is a big place ...]

Entry 12: in which I annoy Lucy

Lucifer collared me for what he called a “one on one”. He's a strange cove. He’s always respectful and if he had a forelock I would not be surprised if he tugged it. He seems to defer to me on everything, and while he displays an endearing humility in my presence, I have the strangest feeling that he knows more than he lets on and an even stronger feeling that he laughs at me behind my back. I can safely say that he is not on the short list of entities that I want to go on holiday with.

I have taken to calling him Lucy. Just slipped out the first time, but there was a definite twitch of the tail. Childish I know, to persist, but it does seem to be a small chink in his otherwise impenetrable urbanity.

Anyway, back to the one-on-one. He “shared” with me his firm belief that give or take a couple of hundred million years "Planet of the Reptiles" is going to turn religious and that we need some “contingency” in place. I quote. Why for goodness sake? I mean, what difference can it make? The best thing is to stay well away and let them run themselves ragged. They'll soon forget about it.

I asked Lucy if he has even visited the place, but as usual he was evasive. Well I have, and the main preoccupation of everything that walks, swims, flies, crawls or slithers is finding something to shag and something to eat (not necessarily, though often, in that order). Oh, and to do both while not being eaten. What a place! I reckon it's home to more teeth and claws than the rest of the universe put together.

Anyway, I told him that I have more chance of growing old than of that bunch finding religion and contingency was not an issue. Of course he agreed immediately while at the same time looking like he was doing his best not to smile. An absolute jackass. Thus far I see no reason to revise my already poor opinion of him.

Entry 11: in which we have a dull meeting

Had the meeting which, as usual, was as dull as ditchwater. I’m sure Mrs G is a stakeholder but she never puts in an appearance. Signs of intelligence after all.

The archangels are the vainest things in creation and spend most of the time whispering to each other behind their hands. About what? Does my bum look big in this? In my capacity as Chair I glower suitably and they look as guilty as poo, then they start at it again!

Only one item on the agenda (again) which is the interventionist vs non-interventionist one. I mean it’s a complete no-brainer. Set up your natural laws and let the universe rip is my advice to all and sundry. The moment you intervene you’re stuffed. You’ll be doing nothing else till the big collapse.

Of course you always get an archangel coming in with the “What if a wee sentient being was about to be crushed by a falling rock” argument. To which my answer is “Strawberry jam”. This has the whole bunch of them, cherubs too, looking like a wet Wednesday and more whispering behind hands ensues.

The point is I’ve been here before. The moment you intervene you set up a string of unintended consequences that require yet more intervention and before you know it you have a circle of quite untameable ferocity.

Surprised to find both Lucifer and the Ghost backing me on this one. The boy, who I can usually count on for support, was nowhere to be seen. And no apologies for absence either.

Entry 10: in which One is magnanimous

This “God God” thing has gone far enough. I’ve told Mrs G that from now on taking my name in vain is forbidden. She looked suitably contrite and said “yes dear”.

I could have sworn that she muttered “Jesus God” under her breath as she walked away, but I may have imagined it. Anyway it’s not in my nature to be vengeful so I’ll let it pass.

Entry 9: in which stakeholders are introduced

Mrs G tells me that there is to be a stakeholders meeting. Why am I always the last to find out about these things? Fortunately there are not too many stakeholders, though of course when you’re dealing with pan-dimensional entities number becomes a rather slippery concept.

I suppose I should introduce them, my cast of characters as it were. Well, there’s the boy, of course, though he shows even less interest than I do, various archangels including Kemuel, Nathanael, Gabriel, and Lucifer (more of him later), and the thing I call the Ghost because I’m absolutely buggered if I know what it is or what it does. Then you've got your minor players, cherubs and so on. And Mrs God of course, bless her.

In theory, but not, in my opinion, in practice, the stakeholders are all on the same side, which is to say the side of running the whole show smoothly, but if there aren’t factions then I’m a monkey’s uncle. Lucifer’s a complete arse – far too clever and smooth for my liking. Always showers Mrs G with complements, what a lovely blouse, that sort of thing. She simpers away, laps it all up completely uncritically.

She has no blouse, so how can it be lovely? She says that’s not the point and I could learn a thing or two about manners from him. Fat chance.

Entry 8: in which some reptiles appear

Slime popping up everywhere! Something to do with either the laws of chemistry or physics in this particular iteration. Probably both come to think of it.

You can’t say boo to a molecule before it starts self-replicating. Which is well and good. But, and here's the rub, also some complex forms bobbing up here and there. I never understand why this happens. Bacteria definitely rule the universe, at least in the domain of living things. And generally that's that.

Generally but not always. On one planet, which for the moment shall be nameless, there are some quite serious reptiles. Smart too. But not clever enough to start worshipping anything, for which I am deeply grateful.

[Editor's note: I suspect that this is a reference to prehistoric Earth, though I can't be sure. It could be that the author has in fact been selective in the episodes He has provided for publication; appropriate, perhaps, to each locale where publication is to take place.]

Entry 7: in which Mrs God is annoying

Mrs God has developed a very annoying habit of saying “God God”. It started at some moment of exasperation on her part, caused by who knows what - probably some alleged untidiness on my part or failure to do some trivial task she set me. Anyway, I’m always prepared to put up with a bit of mild abuse. Now, however, it’s happening all the time and while it may have been amusing once, it’s really beginning to hack me off.

Needless to say, the humorous element persists for herself and she wanders off chuckling mindlessly after every repetition. I think dignified silence is my best defence.

Entry 6: in which One reflects on bacteria and intelligence

Many of the planets have cooled now. Several of them have bacteria developing nicely, and we're only, what, about 4 billion years into this cycle? Not bad.

Now I have to confess I have a weakness for bacteria. Or "slime" as Mrs God refers to them in the collective – a slime of bacteria. Does have a sort of ring to it I suppose; I think I’ll adopt it.

Slime does all sorts of interesting things to a planet - obviously lots more entertaining chemistry, atmosphere, temperature, even its colour. Trouble is, it doesn’t always stay that way. Every now and then the slime sort of gets together with itself and you get complex organisms developing. Worse, you occasionally have the evolution of what one might laughingly call intelligence.

Show me a planet with intelligence and I’ll show you a planet that’s about to disappear up its own sphincter. Oh, and they always end up inventing religion, often not long before "the end" as it were. Quelle surprise! Fortunately the universe is a big place. Seriously big. Definitely as big as - oh, I don't know - a very big thing. So you can pretty well ignore these minor anomalies and they disappear down the back of the sofa as it were.