Can you split an infinitive? Can you actually pray ‘boldly’ as opposed to humbly, sincerely, smirkingly, fires of hellishly?
Who cares?

My point is that they have officially confirmed that Scientology is ‘a religion’. In my eyes, and in those of any good Something-fearing person (even if that which you fear is only losing to Arsenal in the FA Cup), scientology is Star Trek. Its Star Wars.
Katie Holmes was right; its total and utter bollox of a sci-fi nature. Yet now its been officially sanctioned as ‘a religion’ so that a couple (of dorks, obviously) can get married in their ‘place of worship’.

L.Ron Hubbard, wasn’t a very good science fiction writer so he turned his most stupid of books, Chariots of the Gods, or one of them anyway, into a quasi-religious bible. A statement of fact. YES; aliens did invade the planet Earth 75 million years ago and YES these aliens ‘attached themselves to humans’ and the only way to divest ourselves of these evil ‘Thetans’ is to pay most of our worldly possessions over to the Scientology ‘church’ and we will be freed. Halleluyah! Or ‘nanu-nanu’, maybe.

Oddly, there were no humans 75 million years ago. Not even cave-dwelling Neanderthal types, Lib Dems, insurance salesmen or Charles Saatchi. But such details didn’t stop those damned Thetans…

In 1970 scientology was refused religious status, even though it fulfilled the criterion that ‘groups of people meet and worship’ (groups of very odd people do, anyway) but failed because it lacked a deity, a single god-type central figure. A star. A Simon Cowell type A-lister to be the focus. But in 2013 the judges have become more accepting and as no-one really gives a shit about religion any more, you can register any kind of nutty following and achieve credibility.

And more importantly, you can get tax relief. A ‘religion’ (as opposed to a group of Trekkie nutters meeting to fleece each other out of money) has charitable status and thus gets all kinds of benefits. Therefore I am personally going to be subsidising Tom Cruise and John Travolta and fund the former’s elevator heels and the latter’s hair transplants and jumbo jet habit.

Top Table, the restaurant review and cheap table website, has listed Britain’s top 100 restaurants according to those bargain hunters who use its site. And Gordon Ramsey came out on top. McDonalds hardly got a mention, nor Efes kebabs in Great Titchfield Street, the finest eatery in the entire world, especially sitting on the wall outside with chilli sauce dripping down your shirtsleeves.

But predictably, London had over 50% of the top restaurants. (For anyone reading this in Norfolk; that’s over half). Birmingham, our ‘second city’ boasted 4 of the top 100 and Manchester, which has serious pretensions at being slick and cultured, had 6. Probably all those Thetans attaching themselves to the Mancunians.

Scotland had 9. All of Scotland. Which is about 8 more than I would have predicted. Maybe the world of haute cuisine is just not ready for deep fried mars bars wrapped in animal intestines. Well that’s their frikkin loss.

Happy thursday

A xxxx