I watched an event on the News the other night. Bunch’a American… mid-westerners? Southerners? You know, the not very bright ones, and they were hailing Jesus and praising the Lord and there were preachers shouting about the Devil and salvation and, my favourite bit, when people start feinting all over the place because Jesus has ‘entered’ them, in a non-#metoo way, or the spirituality became overwhelming or, well, whatever causes whole groups of evangelical Christian Americans to spontaneously fall down, had happened.

But this was not a church meeting. Not (strictly) a ‘religious’ occasion. This was a political gathering. A rally of Pennsylvanian Republicans. Who are fed up with ‘the lack of Jesus in American politics’ and the fear that their nation is now in league with ‘the Devil’ (spoken not in irony or metaphor, but literally. Trust me, these people are the walking, talking, feinting definition of ‘literal’). And as that ‘devil’ is a Democrat, they must mean Joe Biden. Yet however little you think of their current President, and you really couldn’t think less of him than I do, Devil? Having sufficient personality to be mistaken for demonic would be a step up for doddery old Joe.

But those gathered, to every last man, woman and imbecile, see Donald Trump as their salvation. Holy Fucking Shit! Never mind the man’s totally immoral actions, words and deeds, he is still their idol because he plays the ‘pro-life’ card.

The ‘preacher, typical gobby, screaming bible-bashing Jesus lover, shouted: ‘INSURRECTION!! YA AIN’T SEEN NOTHIN YET!! WE’LL SHOW YA INSURRECTION!!!’, obviously referencing the invasion of the Capitol building at Trump’s behest. Yet this dipstick (the Preacher, not Trump, though understand the ambiguity) maintained that he is a preacher of religion and NOT politics. Errrr… insurrection… what religion’s that then?

There is a strong move in many (of the illiterate) States now towards making America more Christian again. And that obviously involves Trump. The modern day Jesus Christ. God help us. Literally.

Gary Neville realised on Friday that being ‘quick-witted’ and ‘sharply spoken’ in the company of Alan Shearer and Ian Wright is not quite the same as when you’re facing Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, as Gary was in ‘Have I got News for you’. They questioned the increasingly squirming ex-Man United captain about his contract to be a pundit for Qatar state tv for the World Cup. And Neville, who addressed the Labour Party conference a few weeks ago, calling the Tories ‘a cancer upon this nation’, and who is all about ‘working people’ and his own version of the ‘class war’, fought through the windscreen of his Lamborghini, is probably not getting the full £150million that best mate, David Beckham is getting for being an ‘ambassador for the tournament’, but it’ll be lots and lots and lots. For which, Gary feels, he’ll be more than entitled to make endless points about human rights abuses, treatment of gays, death of construction workers, subjugation of women. And, obviously, corruption in international football. In between talking about how deploying wing-backs against a 4-4-2 can be very disruptive to a defence.

Happy rainy, shitty, man-flu Sunday

A xxxx