Ladies and gentlemen: recently empuzzlement has come upon me. I am a man of peace, like that Kane in Kung Fu, and I was at first utterly and completely confused about this war business. I found that I agreed with whoever I happened to be listening to at any particular time, this being quite the reverse of my usual behaviour.

I agreed with the people who said bomb the fuck out of everyone because we are up against an evil criminal genius mastermind. I agreed with the people who said we should Give Peace A Chance. I agreed with the boy band fellow who said "this is not as important as saving all the elephants". I even agreed with Osama Bin Laden when he was interviewed by that guy in a cave that time.

I was utterly and completely perplexed by this newfound tendency within myself as I usually find myself agreeing with not many people at all. Then I remembered one of the great religious texts, The Books of Bokonon, being a religion invented by Kurt Vonnegut Jr in his excellent irreligious parable, Cats Cradle.

According to Father Kurt (peace be upon him), Bokononism is the only religion that faces up to the fact that it consists entirely of lies, and is therefore the only true religion. Bokononism consists of FOMA, that is to say, lies invented by Bokonon in order to make us feel better. All religions have their equivalent of FOMA.

Bokononism is the only religion that faces up to the fact that they are FOMA.

In Bokononism, a GRANFALLOON is a group of people who have gotten together because they think they know what God is doing. These organisations are doomed to failure, as anyone who thinks they know what God is doing is a fool. The US government, the Taliban, and any nation or religion anywhere at any time, are all examples of Granfalloons. A Granfalloon is a false KARASS.

The KARASS is an organisation put together by God, and although we can never know exactly who is in our Karass, we can have the occasional tantalising glimpse. If you find your life bound up with someone else’s for no apparent reason, that person is in your Karass. For instance, and for reasons too complex to go into here, I know that John Robb, he of the Membranes, Gold Blade, and appearing on those "I remember last week" type TV shows talking about spacehoppers etc. is in my Karass, and I in his. I might not be explaining this Karass business very well, but you can always go and read Cat’s Cradle (the best book on religion ever) or find a Vonnegut site. No matter - it is all FOMA.

Everything a Granfalloon does is wrong, even though they are absolutely convinced that they are right. Which from their point of view they are. That is why I was agreeing with everyone over this war business. Every single one of them is right from their own perspectives, their own FOMA, and wrong from everyone else’s. Plus it saves time, agreeing with everyone. Then you can get on with really important stuff like looking at girls or listening to Art Blakey records.

A critique of the current war-type situation according to the Books of Bokonon:

All of the true things I am about to tell you are lies:

JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY and ISLAM are all Granfalloons, and thus destined to go tits-up. I will give you some for-instances why Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are Granfalloons.

N.B. Zen Buddhism is not a Granfalloon as we do not profess to know what God is doing, we instead have what the late prophet Douglas Adams (peace be upon him too) described as "rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty". But I digress.

The Granfalloons delineated above, all share to a greater or lesser extent the idea that certain areas on Earth are more Holy than others. "This is the Holy Land, my imaginary friend put it here just for me".

Whence cometh the idea of a Holy Land? Way I see it, if you believe in a supreme being, God, Wonken-tonken, Jah Rastafari, and the like, then it's all holy. If you don't, ain't none if it is.

This Dalai Llama business, where is that at? Every time a Dalai Lama dies, they go seek out his reincarnation. Where do they find him (and it’s always a him)? Just up the road in Tibet! So: the cosmic forces, most powerful being in the universe, whatever, obey Earthly laws of geography and gender, huh?

Why is it never a woman in Trevethin?

Where does a Holy Place stop being Holy? Does the Holiness sort of taper off? Or does it come to an abrupt end like the force field in Forbidden Planet?

Holy Week, Holy Day, whatever. You can call it Ramadam, Christmas, Mochter Schochter or whatever, it’s still bollocks.

"I’m really looking forward to next month, it is more Holy than this month, and there will be less bombings". Do you really think an eternal being who has existed forever and will carry on existing forever gives a quark about what time it is? Of course not. Again….GRANFALLOONS: eerily, spookily. Does it suddenly become more Holy on the stroke of midnight on a Holy Month/Day/Year etc? And then suddenly less Holy at the end? In what way? Does the Holiness travel along the surface of the world? Is it more or less Holy either side of the International Date Line? Can you nip over the dateline to where it’s not Holy, bomb someone, and then nip back again to where it is Holy so they can’t bomb you back? I really don’t think they’ve thought it through. Ha! Those Muslims with their quaint idea of Ramadam, we gave that sort of thing up almost twelve years ago when we allowed Supermarkets to open on a Sunday.

Not so many in Christianity as those other two. Though they are supposed to do it (see Levicticus our old fave rave part of the Bible which prohibits eating pelicans and all that). This is also crap. You know how long a Muslim has to fast at Ramadam? Eleven hours! That’s nothing, I can do that in my sleep.

Not eating pork….? Oh yeah, really difficult, I don’t eat any kind of meat. Pork is the worst kind of meat anyway. That’s like me saying I’ll give up chocolate and only giving up orange creams. Why is the pig an unclean animal? Are we saying that the Creator made all the animals for us to eat but when he made the pig he messed up? And what about other animals, ones that aren’t mentioned in the Bible?

All of these religions stem from the same set of desert myths invented by Nomadic tribes thousands of years ago. They are all alleged to be the word of God, Allah, whoever their particular little Granfalloon believes to be the Creator Of The Universe.

Does it say in the Bible you can eat kangaroos? Does it even mention kangaroos? Nope, and that is because these books are quite simply collations of the mythology of desert people, and there ain’t no kangaroos in deserts. If there was maybe a drawing of a kangaroo in the Old Testament, with something about how the kangaroos were yea verily making a mighty racket in the Ark so they dumped their ass on Australia, fair enough, but nooooooo.

That’s why Adam and Eve are made of mud in the Bible but made of ash in the Viking myths. Sorry to be so hard on you folks, but as Britain’s foremost representative of one of the few religions that never had a war in it’s own holy name, I feel entitled. I know I can think of plenty better things to do.

Hey! All you so called major world religions of the 21^st Century! Haven’t you got any other way to occupy your time than have petty squabbles based on stuff some old desert guys made up? I, Britain’s Foremost Zen Buddhist, have spoken.

As I said at the start I was at first utterly and completely confused about this war. Who is right and who is wrong? There I was, Local Man Agrees With Everybody Over Afghanistan because It Saves Time. When was the beam plucked from my eye? I was watching the MTV awards when suddenly the screen was filled with Mr Damien Allbran out of Blur, accepting an award on behalf of his "new project", The Gorillaz.

I think you will find that the Granfaloon to which Mr Allbran belongs is None Of The Above, indeed it is the post-hippy liberal peacenik Granfalloon.

"War is wrooong" said Damien. "Bombing poor people is wrooong".

Your humble correspondent happens to conform to the Willie Dixon position on pacifism, i.e. "if they spent half as much on peace as they spent on war, no one would have to worry about nothing". A true Zen saying.

No way, however, could I find myself agreeing with mockney pipsqeak Damien Allbran. Him of "If I stand next to enough cool things, I will perhaps be cool myself. Or maybe even if people just think I’m cool, t’would be enough".

Yon Allbran greatly vexes me, and the main reason for this is because, by the laws of averages, some of what the clueless gink fastens upon is going to be stuff I like. I recently bought a NEU! CD and was greeted with a blurb extolling it’s virtue "I fink this is a really great record, cor lumme guv’nor, you should already have it, you’re one step behind me, the immensely hep Damien Allbran".

Now it’s bad enough when he does this with gramophone records. Here he was, doing it with the concept of pacifism… or so it seemed. Perhaps he really does hold deep seated and heartfelt political views, perhaps he’s not posturing, or adopting what he feels to be the "cool" position on something. There’s always a first time. I find myself forced to ask, if he has some views on say, American foreign policy, why hasn’t he said anything before? Why didn’t he mention any of this when there wasn’t a war going on? As did for instance Nicky "the Great Helmsman" Wire? You all scoffed when the Manics went to Cuba as a situationist metaphor publicity stunt against US foreign policy, but he was right wasn’t he?

Nope, Damien appears to be the type of Pacifist who doesn’t say anything for years on end, yet as soon as there’s a war he’s all "you shouldn’t have wars man, it’s wrong". What’s the point of waiting until there’s a war and saying this? It’s too blimmin’ late then. Like those people who predicted the World Trade Centre incident the day after - missing, I would venture, something crucial to the nature of prediction. What’s the good of that?

War, people tell us, is Human Nature. This cannot be right, because I don’t want wars and I’m absolutely normal. However, if we must have wars about obscure points of order in the mythologies of Desert Peoples, the very least we can do is think up ways of having them without hurting people. I know these points might seem outdated now, but in the very likely event of this all kicking off again, I’ll set the ball rolling by exploring some possibilities...

Yes folks, I am a man of peace. And as such I often despair of my fellow persons of peace, who just go round saying war is wrong whenever there’s a war on. You will note that the post-hippy liberal consensus is such a powerful lobby nowadays that our governments are having to constantly explain themselves while this war is going on. They haven’t actually modified their behaviour, apart from maybe the dropping of limited amounts of food, though that’s a start. I hereby call for the dropping of food instead of bombs. Indeed, I will specify the type of food; REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS.

The Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is the most delectable food-substance known to humankind. Drop a bunch of ‘em. I’d kill for a peanut butter cup right now but you can’t get ‘em in Gwent. If someone were to drop a few hundredweight on us I’d soon think better of them.

NB one theory is that the plane which crashed in Philadelphia without reaching any specific target was actually headed for the "Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup World" theme park.

As we all know, Taliban women were/are forced to wear something called the Burqa to hide all their bits. I suggest that if, when you’re out and about, you see someone wearing a Burqa you give them a sexy look, perhaps a saucy wink, in order to sow the seeds of religious doubt in their minds. I always do. Do so even if you are a woman, in fact especially if you are a woman.

I also suggest you find out if Burqa is in the Oxford English Dictionary as it would come in useful in Scrabble.

Forcing the Taliban to abandon the Burqa is simplicity itself, thus: kidnap a main Taliban’s wife and replace her with Margaret Thatcher. After he finds himself in bed with the Cockatrice of Babylon, the abolition of the burqa would swiftly ensue. If he does not get the message, kidnap one of his other wives and replace her with Anne Robinson. I very much doubt he wouldn’t get the message then.

Of course there is a very real risk that the Taliban would execute Thatcher and Robinson. Ho hum. We could also send Jo Whiley in a burqa to ask Osama Bin Laden what he thought of the Smiths.

These are but two examples I have thought up. They are certainly no less impractical than the killing of a bunch of people, and wouldn’t really upset anyone that doesn’t deserve to be upset.

Since I ceased from agreeing with everyone about this war business, I have found a couple more people to disagree with, and these people are Margaret Thatcher and Julian Cope. You might think Julian Cope and Margaret Thatcher, like Kermit and Miss Piggy, make strange bedfellows, but you'd be wrong.

Julian Cope, there's a fellow that believes a load of old Earth Mother hokum like a Cliff Richard with twigs in his hair. Writes good books on Krautrock and all, though I take issue with his comments on Future Days by Can.

But I digress. Julian had much to say about the current conflict, and midst a curious blend of perfect rationalism and garbled pseudoscience, he comes out with some eighties hippy-feminist stuff about how wars are sweaty testosterone-led affairs, that they are somehow linked to the male sexual urge. Up until fairly recently it was the conventional norm for everyone to be pro-war. Look up the behaviour of women as regard the white feather and world war one.

If you look at Julian's website you'll also see he says the exact same thing as Margaret Thatcher about the Muslim leaders not condemning the events of 11th September. It so happens that Muhammad Ali, the greatest and prettiest boxer of all time, who was once the most famous Muslim, nay, the most famous man on Earth, has condemned them, and how much more Muslim do you want?

I do not know if there is a god or not, but I am pretty sure that if there is one, it (for everyone made it a boy) is so vast and incomprehensible that we cannot even begin to imagine it's terrible majesty. One reason why I cannot describe myself as an atheist is that I find I cannot discount that possibility. It would be unscientific so to do. Another reason why I dislike the term "atheist" is that it defines someone by what they are not.

But I don't think there can be an afterlife because if there was I'm sure my dad, who was born on the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month, would have come to see me by now.

Anyway, I think I may have blasphemed against more than a few religions already, and that is precisely my point. Why should they care?

They are talking about faith. Yet those that speak of faith, they always want someone to agree with them, as if there was safety in numbers, even for faith. D H Lawrence said that. It should not matter that someone blasphemes, they should be able to withstand it. They should welcome it. Peter the Apostle said that.

Why did god give me asthma?

Why were humans created just to suffer and die?

Well why not?

Etcetra.

Can't answer it. Any of it. None of you. Yet you carry on with this imaginary friend versus imaginary friend business. Let's look up another word. Let's look up SPIRITUAL: "relating to the spirit or soul and not to the realm of matter. Intangible".

So why are you all going round the Earth bothering other people with it?