Tuesday, March 19, 2013

JG went to Rome to see the Pope......

hi there

here is a picture of my (at least until he has got about half way through this) good friend Jonathan Granville, looking somewhat contemplative upon a beach. hang on, i've got that wrong in the world of grammar, have i not? he's stood on a beach, or a beach like place, looking contemplative. is that a better way of saying it?

if not, never mind, here's the picture.



why is he doing whatever it is he is doing wherever he happens to be stood? not really for the reasons that i am going to say here, but ignore that part and read on to find out, please.

Jonathan and religion are not natural bedfellows. despite some obvious and perhaps understandable frustration at seemingly being the number one target for bothering by Jehova's Witnesses in his particular dialling code, Jonathan is not one of those "woooohooo wooweee, let's go and burn everything and dismantle all systems" type of chaps. he's more a sort of live and let live, just let others get on with it and do not bother me sort of bloke.

this equilibrium of sorts has, alas, come to an end with the, if this is the right term, election of Pope Frankie Say I recently. well, Pope Frankie or whatever he is. him off Argentina. Jonathan, you see, is convinced that he is neither an Argentine nor Frankie. Jonathan is convinced, in my opinion if not in any sort of fact or comment from the lad, that he is on the whole rather more Heswallian and a good deal more Jim.




you can sort of see  what his entirely fabricated point is, looking at the artist formerly known as a pontiff above. there's no way that i am actually going to put a picture of the Jim Bowen up here, as it will simply serve to distract Jonathan and his legal squad from any of the quite possibly slanderous comments i attribute to him here. google away.

the problem that this is causing for the slightly older than me but all the same still young Jonathan is that of all the religions he has considered joining, the Catholic church has sadly not featured. why not? Jonathan believes that if he were to join an organized religion, it would certainly be one that has a number in its name, as numbers are cool. and yet, as cool as a church or religion with a number in the name is, there's the Catholics tempting Jonathan with the idea of Pope Bullseye.

for those of you unaware of what Bullseye is, google away. for most it was bizarre compulsive viewing despite clearly being a load of complete and utter sh!t, but for Jonathan it was like one of them epiphany things. the show regularly featured two men who lived in a caravan in Hull (or similar) showing off their deft skill with darts and knowledge of tea time soap opera characters in the hope that they would be rewarded with someone like Eric Bristow throwing enough darts in the correct order to win them a speedboat or a trouser press. "yes", said Jonathan when he regularly watched caravan dwellers narrowly miss out on a speedboat but get a statue of a bull instead, "this is the life i want to live".

there is a point to all of this, dear reader, do bear with me. by making the host of Bullseye, a man who Jonathan considers a god already if only in a quasi-fashionista sense, the head of the Catholic church, Jim Bowen is now technically a "double god". that, you would think, would be good enough for Jonathan to sign up straight away and head to choir practice. this has not been the case so far, for Jonathan still has some serious reservations about the Vatican, or the "Twatican" as he calls it.



exactly what are the issues he has with the, as we shall call it here for now, Vatican? two, really, as there are only two bits of fact that i have on the place on hand that i can blatantly imply Jonathan has an issue with. the first issue is that, statistically, the Vatican is the crime capital of the world. the population of the Vatican is 800, and yet some 600 crimes are reported there every year. Jonathan suspects that certain crimes go on that are not reported too, making it a true hotbed of naughty naughty.

the second reason, and the most damning in regards of Jonathan calling the place the "Twatican", is the small matter of the ATM facilities there offering instructions in latin. first off, exactly what need does the Pope or a member of the Swiss Guard have for an ATM? secondly, well, you have to say that using latin in general is a bit of a twat-like show off thing to do, so fair enough.

does Jonathan follow his heart, sign the registration papers for the Catholic Church, hang a picture of that Camilla Parker Bowles woman on his wall and profess his total devotion to Pope Bullseye, or does he listen to his head and just spend his days quietly reminiscing about the heyday of Jim Bowen, when all homoerotic overtones about two men living in a caravan near where sailors hang out flew over his head as he tried desperately to give them a statue of a bull?



to help him decide, and here's where the sort of point of this blog post comes in, Jonathan has turned to Genesis for guidance, assistance, and direction. no, not that Genesis, this Genesis.


yes, once again Jonathan Granville has decided to unleash an interpretation of a piece of music involving Phil Collins on the world. he has done a cover of that awesome Genesis hit, Jesus He Knows Me or whatever Phil and Mike Rutherford called it. you can either stream it or download it by clicking these words here. go on, give it a go. and yes, he has called it Jebus as he could not recall exactly what it was called either.

if for some reason you are wrestling with the notion of changing your faith or belief system due to the head of a particular church resembling the host of a mostly forgotten early Sunday evening TV show, Jonathan Granville hopes that the song has some resonance for you. for everyone else, simply enjoy.

there are another eight cover versions being produced by the very talented and hopefully not too astute in the realms of what does and does not constitute legal libel or defamation Jonathan Granville. i will be doing my best, cease and desist letters pending, to bring you the details of all of them.

dig the vibes!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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