Pope Go Rome
As I write I am listening to the UEFA Cup (it’s still called that to me) Final between Fulham and Atlético Madrid. I’m watching on a German/Tunisian channel and the commentary mostly consists of “Whooooaaaah!”, “Ooooooh!”, longer “Whoooooooooaaaah!”s and “Lalala…” Tunisian has just jumped up my ‘languages to learn’ list, if there is such a language…
It’s been an interesting few days. We’re in the middle of a ‘holy’ couple of days here in Lisboa where literally thousands of idiots get excited about the visit of an old, wav(er)ing man called the ‘Pope’; a man who represents a spiteful, homophobic, preying organisation openly found guilty of molestation. This organisation claims the persecution their priests suffered amounted to that of the Jews in The Holocaust. For some reason, this organisation is permitted to make such comments because of the sacred context they work within. This excuses them a lot of things; if a political organisation made such comments there would be calls for it to be disbanded. The Pope claims their faults are down to ‘the sin within’. It’s not. It’s because their entire foundation and belief system is flawed, old and desperate. They deny contraception and damn their followers if their backward beliefs are not followed meticulously. They also believe there is a God; a topic upon which I have had to bite my tongue over these last couple of days. Rant over.
Actually, it’s not. The visit practically shut the city down yesterday and he’s coming back again tomorrow. A full-scale military / security operation was in full swing, transport was disrupted; all of which consumed a great deal of money which could have been invested elsewhere. Thankfully, many of my more sane students still came to my lessons instead of heading towards the river to be preached at. I began my lessons with a show of appreciation of the fact that they opted to spend their evening with me and not the ‘holiest’ man in the world. Rant over. Again.
I think God knew these were my sentiments. Yesterday was a day that involved a few mishaps. Firstly, I went to lunch with some friends and my meal arrived HALF AN HOUR after my friends had received their meals. I didn’t find this out until today as I had spent so long in the restaurant that I had to leave for a meeting and to plan my lessons.
Yesterday evening, we also lost our water supply while I was half way through brushing my teeth. I’m damned. It must be God. Fortunately, He left me my bottle of water in my room so I could at least clean my mouth out. Thanks, Man.
I’ve got into the (bad) habit of approaching the cat in the style of a monster; raising my arms in the air and roaring whenever she’s stood in front of me. It sounds strange on paper but it’s quite fun. Only to be done when the flat is empty though.
We have a new Prime Minister! David ‘call me Dave’ Cameron is now the main man in England. I’ve been following the coverage in England so it’s a shame that the whole process has come to an end. It’ll be interesting to see what ‘changes’ come about under his reign. I anticipate the antithesis of *every single thing in England* should his ‘change’ campaign speeches all accumulate into one big ball of ‘change’.
I’ll end with a music video again. Today’s track is from a film I saw a couple of days ago called ‘Once’. It’s beautiful – I recommend it. Our world is a beautiful place even with all this religious nonsense. We don’t need to cheapen it by placing all wonder, mystery and beauty under the umbrella of ‘God’, and as a proud atheist I enjoy things for what they are. Particularly arguing about religion. ;)
