Goodbye 2016. Hello ????

2016 should well and truly have left the building by now. Consequently, My Beloved Sinners, it should finally be safe for Me to once more return to the public eye. The foolish and ungodly can mock Me as overly-cautious all they wish, but one look at last year’s celebrity death toll settles the matter as far as this Internationally Famous Biblical Warrior is concerned. Let’s face it, the moment Princess Leia went instead of Jar Jar Binks it was obvious the old Grim Reaper has started sipping the same backyard moonshine which filled voters’ hipflasks back in November, and there’s no way I was going to stick My head above the parapet in an attempt to become the next social media obituary.

Not, of course, that this year looks like being much better than the last. Granted there are not that many rock stars left to be taken, so things should be cheerier on that front. Yet when I heard Charon had taken Prince for a row across the Styx it was clear we’re no longer dealing with Death as we’ve always understood him; creepy and unrelenting sure, but not in any way that two weeks’ vacation tanning in Bermuda couldn’t resolve. No; it looks awfully like the Maitre d’ of Darkness has finally let power go to his head, and snatching Leonard Cohen while leaving Ted Nugent makes me think the Aztec theology might have been on to something with Tlaloc.

All of which is a fitting lead up to Dear Leader’s looming inauguration. The appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to chair a commission on vaccination reminds me to ask that PLEEEEEEEAAAAASSSSSEEEE nobody mention Aztec religious practices in his little orange presence. Here at the trough historical knowledge of history is an unknown commodity, but if anyone were to raise the notion of seeking divine blessing by means of sacrificially torturing children there’ll be no stopping the idea from catching on. (And to think we’d hitherto always thought of “liturgical death” as referring to an evangelical dance presentation of “Shine Jesus Shine” at the 10am family service).

Which is not to say everything’s bad here at transition headquarters. Sure there was the little misunderstanding with China concerning an alleged call to the Taiwanese President, but the truth is little Donnie just thought he was ordering takeaway. Naturally I put a marvellous spin on things and fooled the simpler ends of mainstream media, but between you and Me, Dear Sinners, I certainly hope you realise our beloved leader doesn’t actually think there are countries run by women. Which, given his preferred means of greeting members of the non-male gender, is probably just as well.

Currently the real excitement is that it’s only a matter of days before we’ll all get to see what really went on at Roswell. Although I can’t help sharing Bishop Quinine’s suspicion that the first thing to happen when the door marked “X Files – Presidential Eyes Ony” gets opened and we all meet ET and his little bug-eyed posse is that a certain orange latex mask gets peeled back, and some creepy cockroach/lizard hybrid starts beeping dirty jokes in Venusian.

I’m Father Christian and I teach the Bible.