Thursday 8 January 2009

Time to start burning some books

I ambled through WH Smiths today. Bear in mind there is a recession on.

In these economically critical times, we surely need to be economical. With food, with fuel and, I would say, with paper. And time. And public interest.

Therefore I cannot, under any circumstances, tolerate a biography of the Archibishop of Canterbury gracing our shelves in favour of something worthwhile. Nobody gives a cocking shit about what he's done in his boring life. I'll tell you the big twist. I shall. I shall tell you the surprise ending. The big exciting finale. You know what it is? He becomes the Archbishop of Canterbury. That's it. That's it! THAT IS IT!

NOBODY CARES!

The sheer hypocrisy of the Church to call for traditional values and then have their leader, their shepherd, pouting his lips on the front cover of a book that's on the same shelf as the Jade Goody Story and Look At Me: I'm That Telly Chef Who Swears All The Time And Now I Advertise Gin Because My Ratings Fell Through The Floor Because Every Cookery Program I Do Has To Rely Not Upon Whether Or Not People Want To Cook My Recipes At Home But Rather To See How Angry I Get In The Course Of Half An Hour.

This is the most vulgar and sweaty modern bastion of charlatanism.

When I thought I could not be incensed further, I noticed the categorisation. They had put Rowan's Rule in with the Bible, Koran and Torah. Also in there was an advice guide to clergy who have to talk to homosexuals. It had a list in it describing the different homosexualities you can get. According to the Anglican Church ANY VIOLENT ACT CONSTITUTES HOMOSEXUALITY. What? What the fuck? No. No that's wrong. That's offensive to homosexuals who are, on the whole in my experience, very mild people and also offensive to violent homophobes who pride themselves on their ability to avert accusations of homosexuality with their ability to hit people.

And then, oh then, the icing on the cake of contempt: I could not find a poetry/plays section in WH Smith - no - but I COULD find a "Tragic True Life Stories" section. This is all those books about kids who maybe got smacked once and then wrote the most preposterous lies about their parents feeding them bleach and putting them in kennels so they can make some money off the morons who buy this drivel. This means that according to WH Smith's standards (and the leisure pound of the average British citizen) these flimsy stories are of more worth than Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Miller, Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Milton, Marlowe, et al.

Obviously they are not. Obviously WH Smith's are wrong.

I will endeavour to prove it to them. Post-haste!