Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

We have a new government in Britain. Hurrah! Fifty years ago Charles De Gaulle told us "I think Britain and its institutions are wonderful, and no, you can't join the Common Market." Our constitution evolves before our very eyes. Thank goodness we never wrote it down. Think of all the time we'd have to spend re-writing it!

We Christians think having a government is a jolly good thing. So I, for one, am very happy that we now have one, especially one chosen by our bountiful and gracious sovereign, Her Majesty the Queen (whom I think is very good at picking governments and if any of the archbishoprics happen to become available any time soon, you know where to find me). With someone of the calibre of George Osborne in charge of our economy, what could possibly go wrong?

Saint Someone-or-other thought having a government was a jolly good idea too, so I must be right. He said so right up to the point that it executed him. Even Dickens thought that England (and the other bits of the United Kingdom, but mostly England) had the finest political institutions in the world, although he was actually joking, but I'll take it as an endorsement nonetheless. A famous constitutional expert also thinks having a government is a good idea, so why do you all keep going on about not having one?

So happy new government everyone!

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

Gordon Brown is going. The Liberals are getting into bed with the Tories, or possibly Labour. The British people have spoken. Out of the vast diversity of political opinion that spans our land, a single voice has emerged and it has said "Huh?"

It may surprise you to learn, but this is exactly the way the universe was created. No, honestly, it was. We know this because it says so in the Vedic texts. You see, your soul has existed for all eternity, just like the Liberal Party. You just don't happen to remember most of it, that's all. For most of eternity you've just been sort of wandering around, not thinking about anything in particular and not remembering any of the things you weren't really thinking about.

As the holy texts say, "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, pie and mash with baked beans," or to translate for you, since many will not understand the deep, mystical, spiritual significance of "Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, pie and mash with baked beans,"

"There's a top spirit and he's the Invisible Magic Friend."

Again we know this for sure because it is written.

So in summary, doing bad things makes things worse and doing good things makes things better and that's what the Vedic texts tell us about the current negotiations to form a stable government.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

God Bless yer Majesty! In this, her most splendid realm, we have had the wisdom not to commit our constitution to paper as those brash and foolish young Americans have. Just think what an envy our constitution would be if it were to be written down.

"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a hereditary monarchy ruled by the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg house, often known as 'Windsor'.

"The reigning monarch is the head of the established Church of England and therefore the holiest person and God's representative in this happy land.

"Under conventions established after various civil wars, restorations and miscellaneous protest movements and acts of parliament, the monarch delegates the powers of the crown to a Prime Minister, who then appoints all the other ministers, as well as all the Lords and all the bishops.

"The reigning monarch reads out the Prime Minister's speech at the state opening of parliament, where all the Lords get to wear nice robes trimmed with ermine and rather fetching coronets, while the monarch wears a really twinkly crown and a robe with a train so long that it takes 200 page boys to carry it.

"The monarchy is only passed on through the male line, unless there is no male line in which case we'll let a woman be monarch.

"The monarch can be any religion they like, as long as it's Church of England.

"The monarch can marry whoever they like, as long as it's not a Catholic.

"We, the subjects of our monarch, know that without the monarchy all that is best in Great Britain would disappear. Justice, mercy, charity - they all exist because of the grace of our most wise and holy sovereign. Without a monarch, the country would just fall to bits like all those other countries have done."

No wonder the world looks to Great Britain and ask how can it be that they have not emulated such a sensible system of government.

Speaking of Schleswig-Holstein. Only three people ever understood a question about it. One was Lord Palmerston but he'd forgotten.

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I know you'll all be very disappointed with this, but there will be no POTD on Sat 8th May. I'm off to Scotland for the weekend and, as we all know, the Internet has yet to reach Scotland. If anyone happens to be around at 7.45 tomorrow morning and happens to hear TFTD, perhaps you could do one of the excellent alternative parodies that frequently appear when I'm not here.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

The election's not over. Isn't it spooky? Isn't it weird? It's all... all... soooo... oh, I don't know... so strange? Some MPs have lost their jobs and they will be very sad. Others will have got new jobs as MPs and they'll be very happy, at least until they have to do their jobs. So who should be happiest: those who have lost their jobs, or those who have new jobs? To answer profound questions like these, we look in the Big Book of Invisible Magic Stuff.

"A nagging wife is like a dripping tap."

This is of course totally sexist and completely inappropriate advice in today's PC, post feminist age and should be ignored. I only mention it so that you know to ignore it. It in no way applies to a Conservative/LibDem alliance.

"Better to eat vegetables with love than roast beef with hatred."

This one indicates that it is better to eat vegetables with friends than to eat roast beef with enemies. This in no way applies to the benefits of a Labour/LibDem alliance.

"Wise counsel is the key to good planning."

This says that good counsel helps you to plan well. Bad counsel probably won't assist you in your planning. In fact it might make your planning worse. So always seek out good counsel rather than bad counsel.

"Wars are won by statecraft."

This one is well known to such good Christian leaders as Tony Blair and George W. Bush and shows that wars are not won with overwhelming military might and virtually no post war planning whatsoever.

And many, many more useful and pithy observations.

I even have one of my own that I'm quite proud of and that I think you'll find quite interesting...

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Aren't election days just weird? There's all the excitement of going to the polling booth and then, like me, you just wait around all day, with nothing much to do.

Speaking of elections, that reminds me of Evagrius of Pontus, the well known 4th century hermit. He liked chanting psalms. As soon as he'd finished chanting a psalm Evagrius would think to himself, "What shall I do now? I know, how about a nice chant. God I love a good chant. There's nothing I love more than sitting here in my hermit's hut, chanting away to myself all day long. Chant, chant, chant, chant, chant."

First thing in the morning he'd start the day off with the first chant of the day and every night, he'd chant himself to sleep. But after having a really good, long, hard, satisfying chant, Evagrius would pause to get his breath back. And it was in those peaceful silences between chants that Evagrius really found the Invisible Magic Friend. Because that's what the Invisible Magic Friend is, the silence, the emptiness, the nothingness between chants.

Isn't it just amazing how relevant Evagrius' chanting is to having an election? I wasn't even going to mention him if it hadn't been the hardest election in a long time.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Peter Hennessey says that everybody who wants to be Prime Minister wants the job because they think they can do the job. Which is odd really, you'd think people who didn't think they could do the job would be more attracted to it.

This is what's wrong with society nowadays. Everyone wants to be good at something. They go around, shamelessly having aspirations and ambitions and hope when they should really just accept that they're completely useless at everything.

Self-confidence is not the same thing as self-love, it is also not the same thing as a banana, or indeed any other form of fruit. But unlike the many other things that self-confidence is not, it does at least share the word "self" with self-love. The other half of self-love, that it does not share with self-confidence, is the word "love", which brings us neatly and seamlessly onto the subject of "love" which is what I really wanted to talk about.

Jesus says you should love the Invisible Magic Friend. Then, if you've got any love left over, you can try loving some other people.

And don't forget to spare some love for all the candidates who people don't want to be their MPs this Thursday.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

A study has shown that too much TV harms toddlers. It makes them underachieve and more likely to be bullied. So add this to the list of junk food, cigarette smoke and Edwardian style discipline. What this shows is that parents should look after their children.

This is exactly what Islam teaches, proving one again the usefulness and rightness of that great religion. The story goes that the prophet Mohammed (I did think about talking about another Muslim prophet, but decided to settle on Mohammed), took a young boy on his lap. The young boy promptly urinated on the prophet. I would ask you all not to picture this in graphic detail. This may cause you to regard the incident as hilarious in a way that would be disrespectful to him and which I'm sure you would not intend.

The boy's father shouted at the boy, "What are you doing? Have you any idea what that guy does to people who piss on him?" But the prophet was in a good mood that day and simply said that it doesn't do to be too harsh. "I really don't want my religion to turn out to be too harsh on people," he said, as he smiled, slapped the man on the back and invited him for a beer.

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Not quite such a strong field as last month, but a fairly good spring crop nonetheless. Sadly, I must begin once again with a rebuke. Vishvapani gave a completely sensible and thoroughly agreeable TFTD. That's what the BBC's Department of Holiness gets for counting Buddhism as a religion.

Fortunately, this was more than made up for by some proper religions. Anne Atkins started out well by ridiculing Philip Pullman's new book that suggests that Jesus was just a good man. This is a sad, tired old idea and therefore false. Jesus is the Invisible Magic Friend, it says so in the Bible. Philip Pullman must be really stupid.

Next, one of our great nation's equality commissioners,Joel Edwards complained about the endless persecution of we Christians. He pointed to the example of the homosexuals who viciously asked to stay at a Christian B&B - the pitiless swine!

But the month goes to our esteemed Muslim contributors. Mona Siddiqui thankfully explained that God creates suffering and death so that we can feel sorry for the victims.

Not wishing to be outdone, Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad gave us his views of the science of Stephen Hawking. Hawking has warned that we would be wise to stay well clear of those hungry aliens. The good Shaikh pointed out that alien life is totally improbable, and therefore impossible, and therefore the Invisible Magic Friend didit uniquely here on Earth, and what does Stephen Hawking know about science anyway.

So, for his seamless combination of science and theology, reinforced by dazzling mathematical feats of computation, this month's Clemmie goes to Shaikh Abdal Hakim Murad!

Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

We all turn to Terry Eagleton to tell us what MacBeth, and indeed everything else, is about. Eagleton has changed his mind. As a young Marxist literary critic, Eagleton saw the three witches as revolutionaries, libertarians who attacked the established political order. Now, as a slightly older and wealthier Marxist, Eagleton has no time for the witches. They're nihilists that care about nothing and champion destruction for its own sake. They rubbish everything and add nothing, much like some blogs do.

Gnostics, who were wrong Christians, thought that matter was evil. Good, proper, right, orthodox Christians like Saint Augustine and me, realised that evil is nothing - it is the absence of anything. It's vacuous, empty and meaningless. That's why Christianity never mentions the devil, or demons or anything like that, since they would be the embodiment of evil and therefore something, not nothing. Some enraged lunatic wielding a chain saw is therefore not evil. The third reich, the inquisition, the gulags and the killing fields, since they actually existed, were not evil.

This is the kind of insight into the nature of evil that only Terry Eagleton, Saint Augustine and me can bring.

So in conclusion, remember to use your vote wisely this polling day.

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