Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Last week I told you how I met a poor person. This week I met a woman. She was struggling with two large heavy suitcases. What should I do? I was on the way to an important meeting as International Director of Micah Challenge, an organisation that travels the world praying and campaigning for poor people, or was it as the chair of the Churches Media Council, or possibly as a council member of Rt. Rev. St. Tony Bliars' Faith Foundation, with its modest aims of eliminating poverty, ending war, and bringing all religions together in peace and harmony under St. Tony's benevolent leadership, while St. Tony himself appeared in human form to the people of Gaza? I know, I thought, this is a job for Human Rights Commissioner!. Defending the rights of all, man or woman, black or white, Christian or some other religion, straight or straight, I quickly and discretely changed into my human rights commissioner outfit. "Please," I said to the struggling woman, "allow me to take your bags from you." "Not bloody likely," she replied in most unladylike fashion. Thus cruelly rejected, I resolved never to help a woman ever again.

But women still need my help. Despite years of hard work at the Human Rights Commission, women still get paid less than men. Should women get paid the same as men? It's a difficult theological question, but I think you'll find the church has been at the forefront of women's rights right from the start. What does my Invisible Magic Friend have to say on the subject? The bible tells the story of Eve being created as a companion for Adam. "These beasts of the field are all very nice," said Adam, but I need someone who can do the washing up and bring me my slippers. So the IMF made Eve out of one of Adam's ribs. Some stupid, ignorant, people read this as an excuse for the superiority of man over woman, pointing out that it was Eve who tempted Adam and brought about the fall, but I'm not one of these stupid, ignorant, people who reads too much into the book of Genesis. What the book of Genesis really proves is that both man and woman were made in the IMF's image. Which means the IMF has both man boobs and lady bumps.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

Lots of young girls are going around having sex and generally having a good time. This has to stop. The pope says you're only allowed to have sex in order to have babies and he's infallible so I believe him. Sex is a dirty thing that you should be ashamed of. Where's the guilt? Where's the social ostracising that goes with people having unlicensed sex? It's all part of politicians' plans to create more abortions. The solution to this isn't more so-called "sex education". It's certainly not more use of "contraceptives", which are just as evil and dirty as sex itself.

It's all the fault of feminism: teaching women that they had rights and could make their own choices about sex - what on Earth were you thinking? It's all me, me, me nowadays. People seem to think they have some sort of right to go around enjoying themselves. Utter selfishness. Jesus might have said to love others, but not by having sex with them. He meant to love them by not going anywhere near them, in the same way you don't go anywhere near your own dirty, filthy, disgusting bits, except when you absolutely have to. What's wrong with good old fashioned sexual ignorance and frustration? That's the Catholic way after all.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

As a Rev. Dr. Dr., and Principal of St John's College Durham, I meet a lot of young people. I'm a big fan of young people and think we should continue to have them. If you, as a young person, were to come to St John's College Durham, you would find us celebrating our centenary. St John's College Durham isn't one of those fly-by-night university colleges that's here one day and gone tomorrow. Some of the alumni of St John's College Durham have gone on to be very important people indeed, such as bishops. Sadly, some of the people who have attended St John's College Durham have died, but not all of them, so please keep coming. Many of our students at St John's College Durham believe in Jesus. This makes them good, charitable people, who do things for others and help out in Jesus' Churches. I'm very grateful that young people exist and that they come to St John's College Durham, with it's excellent accommodation and high academic standards, conveniently located off the A690 within easy walking distance of both the Cathedral and the Castle.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

It was tough when I was a lad. We didn't have all your modern, fancy, Chinese buttons. We had to use rough British buttons. My mum knitted our own buttons, that's how hard we were. We'd offer our buttons to the rag and bone man in return for sweets, but he'd only take quality British buttons, not those cheap foreign imports. I bet you didn't know that 65% of the world's buttons are now made in China. Pure evil, eh? I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I think it's worth repeating, we are exporting our button manufacturing to places like China. That's how we reduce our carbon emissions. That's how you've all become so big and fat and lazy, gorging yourselves on cheap Chinese buttons. Don't you realise that today is the start of Lent? Far be it from me to preach to you in a holier than thou sort of way, but don't you think you should put the bottle down and get up off your drunken fat arse? You lazy, greedy, alcoholic Radio 4 listeners make me sick.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Happy Mardi Gras everyone! I bet you're all planning to have a big party today aren't you? Getting sloshed on Bourbon in New Orleans, or dressing up in drag in Rio, it's a topsy turvy day where young boys can be bishops for the day. This is is all a big joke of course. No young boy could perform the complex job of someone as highly trained and with such specialised skills as a Christian bishop. In the UK it's slightly more subdued: we make pancakes. Making pancakes is our little bit of subversion. Take that - all powerful theocracy! But, as a Rev. Dr., let me just assure you that making pancakes doesn't really change the world. What's really important is being miserable. After your wild orgies of pancake making, it's time to reflect on death. God I love the misery of Lent. Whether it's giving up Chocolate Oranges, or a good daily dose of self-flagellation, we've got six glorious weeks of pain and discomfort to look forward to. Isn't that just fantastic? Enjoy your pancakes.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

China makes 65% of the world's buttons. Yes, China is the button empire of the world. Thanks to the benefits of globalisation, we no longer have to make buttons here in the UK. We can rely on the Chinese, with there renowned expertise in button manufacturing to supply all our button needs. But some countries don't make any buttons and are poor as a result. Taking some time off from being one of your hard working human rights commissioners, where I defend the rights of all, black or white, Christian or some other religion, straight or straight, I jetted off to see a poor person. They were grateful for my presence, knowing as they did that I was the International Director of Micah Challenge, an organisation that travels all over the world praying and campaigning for poor people. I was astonished to discover that Susan was not poor through her own feckless laziness and that she did indeed try to make a living. She even tried to sell me something! I spent two hours there seeing people being poor. Imagine my amazement when, as International Director of Micah Challenge, two poor people asked if they could have jobs praying and campaigning for poor people too. Unfortunately I had to jet off elsewhere. Seeing people being poor doesn't just happen by itself you know. I'm a busy man with other commitments, such as chair of the Churches Media Council, as well as being a council member of Rt. Rev. St. Tony Bliars' Faith Foundation, with its modest aims of eliminating poverty, ending war, and bringing all religions together in peace and harmony under St. Tony's benevolent leadership. In fact it's quite remarkable that I have time to go see poor people at all. But don't forget Jesus' important lesson: there will always be poor people. So we'll always need holy people like me to pray and campaign for them, and visit them to tell them how virtuous they are.

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Rating First half: 0 out of 5 (Not platitudinous), second half: 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

They still won't give me a chance to do a proper TFTD. I mean who listens to this slot on a Saturday morning? I know I never did.

Lots of languages are dying out. I'm reminded of the tragic, tragic tale of the two Mexican brothers, the last two speakers of the language Zoque. Alas the two brothers have fallen out and refuse to speak to each other.

It must be terrible to be the last remaining speaker of a language and have no one left to talk to. I sometimes wonder if I'm talking to myself when I talk to the Magic Celestial Teapot. People increasingly look at me strangely as if I were some sort of loony. Teapotology, the systematic and scholarly study of the nature of the Teapot, attempts to know the unknowable, to make sense of non-sense, to make rational the irrational, to make logical the completely and utterly barmy, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to dream the impossible dream, to reach the unreachable star. Sometimes, even Teapotology doesn't bring me answers though. Sometimes I can't think of anything to say. That's when I talk to the Teapot in my own private Teapot language. It's when me and the Teapot are closest.

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Rating 2 out of 5 (A little platitudinous)

Why did the Invisible Magic Friend create a world where humans invented laws that sometimes conflict with one another? Take the right to freedom of speech. Only the other day, the biblically inspired, and refreshingly frank people from God Hates Fags, were denied entry into the UK. They simply wanted to protest about a Basingstoke School staging a performance of the The Laramie Project. This is a play about Matt Sheppard, the young gay man who was brutally tortured and left tied to a fence to bleed to death. Not everyone will be in agreement with their view that Matt entered hell on Oct 12th 1998, as both the Holy Bible and the Holy Koran will confirm. Surely if they could protest at Matt's funeral, in full view of his grieving parents, we should not deny the young people of Basingstoke the right to hear their views?

We're just being a bit too over-sensitive these days. All the great religions (well all the ones that matter at least) relied heavily on freedom of speech to get started and then promoted it tirelessly from then on. I think we should have allowed the good people of Westboro Baptist Church to explain just why God Hates Fags. Just to show that I'm very even handed about this, I also think Geert Wilders, whose film Fitna portrays the Holy Koran as a misogynistic, homophobic, hate filled promoter of violence and terror, should also have been allowed in. You need to be a little bit more tolerant of other people's views and promote freedom of speech the way Islam does. As the prophet said when promoting freedom of speech "If you can't say something nice then just shutup."

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

I want to talk to you today about Death, to share my deep insights on the subject with you. Jade Goody is dying. This just goes to show how shallow celebrity culture is. I knew someone who died once. I've no wish to use her death in a cynical attempt to extol the nobility of faith in the Invisible Magic Friend, but she went on believing in the Invisible Magic Friend right to the end, a good and noble thing to do. This is so much better than being shallow. Her funeral was well attended as a result. Jesus died a bit too. With this experience in mind, I can confirm to you, as a Rev Dr Dr, that Death definitely happens. This is a slightly scary thought until we remember that we're all going to heaven, unless you're not of course. As Christians, we face up to the reality of Death by convincing ourselves that it doesn't really happen. You should take the same serious, profound, and not at all shallow view of Death that we Rev Dr Drs do.

While we're on the subject of Death, I'd just like shake my head and say that consumerism is a very shallow thing too. Very shallow.

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Yesterday saw the launch of Secular Thought For the Day. This has been created as a direct result of the latest, unsuccessful, attempt to persuade the BBC to see reason. If the quality of the first two posts are anything to go by then this could be well worth a regular visit.