Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Scientific research has proven that people are happiest when they're 20 and when they're 70. Right in the middle, 45, is where you are grumpiest. And no wonder, with the realisation that most of you will never be as famous an author as me, with your youthful dreams crushed, it must be unbearable. That's certainly the view of Ecclesiastes, the grumpiest book in the bible. Ecclesiastes argues that we all end up dead anyway, with no eternal life to look forward to. It says we should enjoy the simple pleasures of this life and help others to do the same.

This is of course utter rubbish. I've got my Invisible Magic Friend. Mid-life crisis must be terrible without one. How do you put up with your sagging skin and fading looks? How do you face another 40 years of being a meaningless non-entity? It must be absolutely awful for you.

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Rating 2 out of 5 (A little platitudinous)

A drunk in a bar told me his woes. "Cheer up," I said. "There's always someone worse off than you." I was worse off than him once. Don't bottle up your anger. That's precisely how Nazi Germany started. Offer your anger up to God. It's mostly His fault anyway. And now for this morning's jokes.

A businessman is woken up in the night by a beggar.
"You didn't give me my money," the beggar complains. "You always give me money when you leave the office."
"It was late," says the businessman. "I'll give it to you tomorrow."
"I don't tell you how to run your business, don't you tell me how to run mine."

Definition of chutzpah: someone who murders his parents and asks for mercy because he is an orphan.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Truth will out. If the mountain won't come to Muhammad, Muhammad must go to the mountain. Eager to get intelligence, the Christian United States has rendered suspects via Diego Garcia, on the basis that all's fair in love and war, a rolling stone gathers no moss, and a stitch in time saves nine. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Intelligence is important and fortune favours the brave. For forewarned is forearmed. As they say, prevention is better than cure, nothing ventured, nothing gained, he who dares wins. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. That's how the early bird catches the worm. Spare the rod, spoil the child.

The UK complies. Where the US is concerned, it's better to be safe than sorry, he who pays the piper calls the tune, best not bite the hand that feeds you. Desperate times call for desperate measures but the US should beware of Greeks bearing gifts. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and there's more than one way to skin a cat, all that glistens is not gold. They're barking up the wrong tree. They may have decided to stop waterboarding but it's all water off a duck's back, ask no questions and they'll be told no lies. An empty vessel makes the most noise.

Charity begins at home. The UK has confessed. Better late than never but fine words butter no parsnips. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Something about Elijah. Can't see the wood for the trees. Moral compass spinning north south, east and west. Where's true north? Where's magnetic north? What's the deep spiritual truth of all this?

Oh yes, the Invisible Magic Friend says: kidnapping people and secretly transporting them half way around the world to be tortured is wrong. You'd never've figured that one out by yourself, would you?

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Still waters run deep. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. Politics makes strange bedfellows. The proof of the pudding is in the eating....

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Sick notes are to be replaced with Well notes. This lists what a person can do, rather than what they can't. Too often we characterise people by their failures rather than their potential to succeed. Just because you've been nasty and horrible all your life doesn't mean that you can't become a warm, generous human being. Fortunately, the cure for those with no morals is readily available in Jesus. If you're grumpy and grouchy then Jesus is for you.

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Rating 5 out of 5 (Extraordinarily platitudinous)

When I was six years old it seemed common sense that a person's life was their own, to do with as they please. Now that I'm so much older and wiser and have become a Christian, I've stopped forming my own opinions and realise what a silly child I was. Anyone who disagrees with me is therefore no better than a silly six year old.

It's fashionable among young people to commit suicide nowadays. Ever since we decriminalised suicide it has become more and more glamorous. People are saying to themselves "I know what'd be fun, I'm gonna commit suicide. Yeah!"

Now it would be quite inappropriate for me to trivialise such tragic deaths or use them to push my own religious agenda, but let me just say that Jesus says killing yourself is wrong. The invisible magic friend has spoken, why are we bothering to debate this?

It's easy to generalise and construct simplistic solutions to complex problems, so let me do just that. There's no difference whatsoever between a suicide born of despair, drug side affects or someone suffering unbearable pain. We can ignore the different circumstances and personal tragedies that lead to the suicide of a mature person or that of a small child; they're the same thing.

If we made suicide a crime we could stiffen the penalties for it. That'd make people who were in despair or chronic pain think twice about being so selfish. They clearly have complex problems that they can no longer face, so the obvious solution is to stigmatise them and punish them rather than solve the underlying problems. That'll teach 'em - bloody sinners. Remember, morality isn't about trying to minimise human suffering, it's about following a rigid, inflexible set of rules that the IMF gives you through me. Jesus says to re-criminalise suicide!

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when Christians in Nigeria berated me for lecturing them on the environment. They quoted Jesus "Hey, chill out man, don't worry about anything." Well you'd never get a reaction like that here in England. Take it from someone as prodigiously reverend as myself, we have much nicer, more responsible Christians over here. Don't these Africans realise that the bible is just full of exhortations to use less petrol and recycle more? I flew all the way over there to make sure they did. We more educated, more thoughtful Christians, have studied Jesus' words in great detail. When he says "don't worry" this is really a metaphor for "worry, and panic like hell".

As those great Christian leaders Bush and Blair depart the world stage, let us hope we are blessed with leaders of equal foresight and wisdom. They must explain to Africans that the version of Christianity we gave them when we so benevolently colonised and enslaved their continent, is very old fashioned. We've got the proper version of Christianity now. Theirs is so terribly, terribly literal and primitive, and not at all environmentally friendly.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Hindu scriptures predicted that one day the world would be a vain, shallow, selfish, brutal, resource hungry, poverty stricken place. 5,000 years later their prophecy has come true, which just goes to show that you need to show some patience when waiting for Hindu prophecies to come true.

Fortunately, the scriptures tell us exactly what to do about it. The solution, it turns out, is not better population control or more efficient use of natural resources, it's reciting the 1,000 names of the invisible magic friend. Reciting this often enough will certainly reduce the amount of procreation and consumption going on.

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Rating 0 out of 5 (Not platitudinous)

As today's TFTD is essentially a personal farewell to an old friend, I think it best if people go straight to the Rabbi's own words.

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Rating 5 out of 5 (Extraordinarily platitudinous)

Hello, Brian Draper here, from the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, where we equip Christians to engage biblically and relevantly with the issues they face.

Ricky Hatton thinks he has the solution to Broken-Britain: more cops, more discipline and tougher sentences. He is of course wrong. What we need is more worshipping of the invisible magic friend. The celebrated expert psychologist, Dr. Oliver James agrees with me. In an interview, given exclusively to myself for the Church Times and available from all good newsagents, he fully endorsed the view that 90% of people, mostly atheists, are emotionally weak and pretty screwed up. It is the duty of we happy few who have faith, who are spiritually superior to the rest of you, to spread happiness, morality and normality among you. Just imagine how loopy you'd all be without us around to keep you sane! That's why Jesus called ethical people like me the salt of the earth: we can cover up just about any bad taste and usually end up causing high blood pressure.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

China, an evil communist country that doesn't like religion, sells weapons to the brutal Sudanese regime in order to protect its oil supply. You'd never catch a virtuous, Christian country like the UK or the USA doing something like that. In an entirely apolitical and unpartisan way, let me just say that the invisible magic friend thinks we should boycott the Beijing Olympics. Steven Speilberg has led the way, but I expect it'll be asking too much to expect people who lack my clear moral insight to follow suit. Ideally, we would boycott any sporting event in any country that does anything wrong, especially ones that don't allow me to indoctrinate children about my invisible magic friend. That would soon unite the world in a spirit of friendship and healthy sporting competition.

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