• 12:18 Trying to decide whether going for a lunchtime run will put my back out again. Plus, I forgot the watch part of my hrm. #
• 14:15 @andygates Feel guilty! #
• 14:16 @andygates It’s bloody freezing here at the moment. Ice and salt everywhere. Not sure I’d want to swim in that! #
• 17:12 @foolishhouse Why are you amazed and bemused? #

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• 18:14 First stage of soup underway: 4 carcasses but one of them’s a ginormous turkey. #
• 19:20 @andygates I’m not disposing of them. I’m utilising them! #
• 22:35 @foolishhouse I’m already well sorted on that particular front. #

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• 12:56 @splinister Yeah, but not a *tassimo*. Blech. #
• 13:05 @splinister You’d think @warrenellis would have better taste, really. #
• 13:12 @splinister Yeah. I think I’m with you on that one, even though I burned my mouth on pizza last night. At least, I *think* it was the pizza #
• 13:16 @amosstruck On the internet. You can find everything on the internet. #
• 18:23 Can you lose your mind if you didn’t know where it was in the first place? Inquiring lost minds want to know. #

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• 11:55 An emergency pollution incident? On Christmas Eve? Damn. #
• 13:00 Is now all wet from retrieving bottles of nasty from the river. #
• 13:13 Norad tracks Santa? WTF? news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7792256.stm #
• 13:27 @foolishhouse Why is there a girl sleeping under your desk? #
• 13:27 By the way, FB folks, I am blocked from FB while at work, and some of us ARE STILL AT WORK. #
• 13:28 @foolishhouse Under the desk I get, but *sleeping*? Surely that means not paying attention. #
• 16:48 It wasn’t really a major incident. Except from the point of view of me getting wet. #
• 18:33 Heading out to parents very shortly. If you’ve got my mobile no., I’m txt/callable. Probably not going to be virtually around otherwise. #
• 18:34 @splinister /sarcasm Nice! What a lovely surprise that must have been. #
• 18:34 Otherwise, peeps, have fun and remember it only happens once a year. #
• 18:46 @splinister I’ll do that. Bro had better turn up or he won’t get his presents! #
• 18:47 @splinister Got that to look forward to tomorrow. Mince pies in batches… #

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After yesterday’s Catholic quackery, today we have another BBC report about a member of the Church demonstrating more WTFery on a par with the Atlas of Creation.

Father Dino Bottino, the parish priest of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Novara, during a children’s mass earlier this month, explained that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

Child: Waaaaaaaaah!!! Woes!!!111!!! Noes!!!1!1!! Need Santa loss support group!
Mother: WTF? Dude! You are MADE OF FAIL.
Priest: No! No! I am awesome. For Our Lord Jebus is MADE OF WIN, and the little kiddies must be told that SANTA is EBIL. He was made up, FFS. Not like Jebus! Oh, and that witch? Befana? She can fuck right off as well. LOLs.
Befana: Noes!!!1! I am MELTING!! FFS.

No doubt our Father Bottino is quite happy to nod enthuiastically to renditions of “We Three Kings” and “Away In A Manger” and all the rest of those sappy carols, not one of which has any literary basis in the Bible, incidentally.

I contend that we are all atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Thus spoke Stephen L. Roberts, and every time the Catholics come out with a diatribe against “false” entities the quote springs effortlessly to mind. God himself felt it necessary to state “Thou shalt worship no other god but me,” thereby tacitly admitting that there were other gods. It’s like wilfully mistaking other things for the crown (thereby acknowledging the existence of the crown — Absolutely, series 4, episode 4, War in Stoneybridge).

Santa Claus is, of course, a modern metamorphosis of Saint Nicholas, who is revered amongst Catholics and patron saint of Bari, in Italy, where he is supposed to be buried. So you might want to check your facts there, Father Bottino.

Or, alternatively, just try removing your head from your ass. La Befana is one of those little old ladies in black. You shouldn’t mess with those. Eny fule kno that.

• 10:15 @splinister Sounds peaceful, at least. #
• 12:52 Going to go for a lunchtime run and make the most of the sunshine while it lasts. Must order Stitch toy. Frood will have conniptions. #
• 14:00 No, my back has definitely gone out again. #

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According to the BBC Pope Benedict XVI, bless his little pointy hat, has declared that “saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is just as important as saving the rainforest from destruction”.

“Rainforests deserve, yes, our protection, but the human being … does not deserve it less,” quipped the tolerance-challenged and hyperbolically melodramatic religious leader.

Really. I’m not at all convinced that passing judgement on what people do or do not do in their private lives, or accusing those engaging in homosexual relationships of sinful activity, will have the same degree of impact on the human species as a whole as, for instance, making sure that all that trapped carbon isn’t released into the atmosphere and the orang-utans still have a place to live. Bumsex versus global warming. Hmmm. Let me see. Celebrity deathmatch?

I don’t think God would be half as much upset about folks engaging in loving relationships of any kind as he would be about the loss of probably millions of his creations — assuming, for the moment, that you believe that God created everything, and I’m guessing the Pope probably does. I suspect that the Almighty is far more concerned about the future of the aye-aye than he is about whether members of a portion of the population are complying with their nature — because, of course, God made them that way, too!

That particular aspect of the Catholic Church’s continuing stance against homosexuality has always confused me. If the Lord God Almighty made everything, then he made gays and lesbians and is probably quite happy with that, and who the hell does the Pope think he is to go around questioning it? Homosexuality exists in very many species. If the bipolar model were so damn necessary we wouldn’t have amoebas, FFS.

If he didn’t make everything then the Bible is fibbing. More literary than literal. Hmmm. Maybe that’s the problem. The Catholic Church has fallen for a spelling mistake!

• 13:38 @foolishhouse Well, it’s afternoon here and I’ve already had three coffees. Trying to chase away the nightmares. Never works. #
• 16:28 Just back from shopping. Aaargh. It’s awful out there. It makes me long for a plague. #

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• 13:08 @splinister Just seen the baby otter pic. Frood loves it. #

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Frood and I are of the Johnny Morris generation: those of us who grew up watching Animal Magic. I assume that’s why we instinctively give animals voices and can tell what they would be saying if they had anything to say. Fuck Ted Andrews: Johnny Morris was the man.

Maura tweeted this photo, which sent Frood into paroxysms of squee.

“Awww it is a cute ickle baby otter. Look at his ottery feet! And his ottery tail! And his ottery face! He looks a bit grumpy. ‘Oi! I are an otter!'”

Yep. Gods alone know what Ted Andrews reckons Otter has to say to us. We come from the Johnny Morris school and know a grumpy otter when we see one.