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 And been replaced by a bunch of hairy-arsed monkeys.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 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 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.