Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

Those of you who don't have both a BBC and a Church of England Pension may be finding business tough in the recession. Indeed if you're not a vicar, you may even find yourself unemployed. You have to make cutbacks. Out goes the foreign holiday, home improvements have to wait, eating at nice restaurants are a thing of the past, but one thing it seems people are not prepared to cut back on are the latest gadgets. Some of my less trendy colleagues may not like social networking sites, but I'm a much more cool and hip sort of Reverend Canon. I'm in there, frantically fingering all my friends texts, getting fashion tips on Facebook and catching up on all the really wicked celebrity gossip. I'm no different from all those kids, alone in their rooms, doing things on the internet.

Human beings like to communicate. You may think this is explained by our evolution as a highly social species who needed complex communication in order to cooperate with one another. A better explanation is that we were designed to communicate by the Invisible Magic Friend. We are created in the image of the Invisible Magic Friend who communicates to us constantly in a clear, unambiguous and consistently non-contradictory way, which is why there is only one religion in the world and we are all in total agreement about the nature and wishes of the Invisible Magic Friend. The existence of the rest of the universe is just the Invisible Magic Friend saying "Hi there, I really exist you know." We know that the Invisible Magic Friend spoke through the prophets because they said so. And it's not just the prophets, loads of other books in the Big Book of Magic Stories assure us that the Invisible Magic Friend communicates through their authors. I think you'll agree, it's a pretty convincing case.

I know a lot of people were very worried after the archbishop declared Facebook sinful. You have wrestled with your conscience, wondering how such innocent pastimes can be against the Invisible Magic Friend's wishes. You may now rest assured. The archbishop is really a false prophet who will burn in hell for all eternity for casting aspersions on the Holy Internet.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

I want to start today with Thought For The Day's favourite, evil, godless, totalitarian regime, North Korea. Thanks to Bill Clinton, two American journalists have just been freed. Other's are not so lucky and find themselves either murdered or imprisoned by evil, godless, totalitarian regimes.

Another evil, godless, totalitarian regime is Burma. There, brave, religious, Buddhist Monks (a kind of Burmese equivalent of Baptist Ministers, except they dress funny and don't have an Invisible Magic Friend) have led protests against the evil, godless, military rulers. I know all about this 'cos I saw it on the telly the other night after a hard day's brave, fearless, Baptist ministering.

"Let us pray to reduce the fear of death," they said. Which is very odd since, although very brave and religious, and in many ways very similar to a Baptist minister such as myself, they don't actually have an IMF to pray to. I think they must have turned into Christians, or at the very least Jews (we don't mention the other Abrahamic religion, who some feel take this religion thing just a bit too seriously). There's an IMF worth praying to. His Big Book of Magic Stories is just full of exhortations for justice and truth.

Biblical prophets were the news reporters of their day, except they were a bit more concerned with future events than current ones.

John Humphrys to Deputy Under Secretary of something or other: "Repent! Repent thine evil ways and return thee to the way of the LORD, or thou shalt surely wither and die!"

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

My father is a banker, my brother is a banker, my cousins are bankers, my uncles are all a bunch of bankers. They deal with numbers I can scarcely comprehend, which is why they thought it would be a very good idea if I became a Benedictine monk. Coming from such a large family of bankers, I therefore wish to plea for some sympathy and understanding for bankers. Yes, they sit around banking all day, but in their spare time many of them do good! They do good! It is simply not true that these people are a universal bunch of parasitic, greedy, arrogant, selfish, flash, self absorbed, bonus obsessed bankers whose short term, rapacious avarice brought the western financial system to the brink of collapse, whose debts we'll be collectively paying off for decades to come, who'd run over your granny if they thought it would increase margins by a fraction of a percent, whose executives have retired on lavish pensions, pay offs and benefits paid for by us, their customers, whose morality is set at about the same level as the local loan shark, who seem to have no intention of changing their ways as they get back to business as usual, betting our pension money in the worldwide market casino using financial instruments that scarcely anyone understands, taking all the winnings and leaving us to pick up the tab when they mess up, screwing every last penny out of every debt laden business and household in the country. Have you no pity for bankers? Look at all the fantastic work they do for widows and orphans.

As Jesus parabled, there's really nothing wrong with being immensely rich. To all my wealthy relations, friends and parishioners, the important thing is that you are generous with your enormous wealth, giving to good causes - any Benedictine monasteries that you happen to come across, for example. Thus will you earn riches in the next life and have a bloody good laugh in this one as well.

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

The government wants to introduce a points system for citizenship. You loose points for bad things, like having an opinion and being so foolish as to express it publicly. Conversely, you gain points for doing something useful, like helping one of Britain's great political parties - the governing one might be quite a good one.

This is an outrage. The Invisible Magic Friend's Big Book of Stories is quite clear about how to treat visitors. How dare the government introduce laws that contradict the Big Book of Stories. It's their lack of godliness that has led to the moral degeneracy of this country: people wantonly eating shellfish and pork, dressing in polycotton shirts and of course, you-know-whos going around enjoying themselves and being an abomination.

The worst case of government suppression of the right to demonstrate happened at the G20 summit in April, where vast crowds of media representatives, reporters and cameramen were kettled into a tiny area around the Bank of England. Even worse than the worst case is the Danish company Vestas, who isn't even the government, denying logistic support to workers occupying their premises.

Someone as nice, and noble, and mild as the prophet Amos wouldn't get points in the new system. He'd probably be characterised as some frothing at the mouth, stark raving loony, religious zealot whose sole aim was to stir up hatred. That's the kind of bizarre, topsy-turvy world this new system would introduce.

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Rating 2 out of 5 (A little platitudinous)

Harriet Harman thinks wimmin should be guaranteed positions in the Labour Party and in the financial sector because men have made such a hash of it all. This is, of course, a silly idea. Wimmin are very good at some things, like picking dresses and sorting out holy underwear, men are better at others. That's not to say that some men aren't very good at picking dresses too. I wouldn't wish to disparage, in any way, the dress picking ability of some men, I'm just not that way inclined, that's all, but it would be most unfair to set 50% quotas for male dress pickers.

Guru Nanak pointed out that wimmin were people too. Thanks to this astonishing revelation we Sikhs have treated wimmin as our equals. We even allow some wimmin to occasionally lead us in prayer, that's how important we think wimmin are. The only Sikh chaplain in the army is a wimmin, not because of her gender but because she's the best man for the job. Positive discrimination in favour of wimmin is just the start of a slippery slope that will soon lead to positive discrimination for all sorts of other fringe, minority groups. Before you know it, they'll be wanting disabled people to be allowed to do things as well.

The Invisible Magic Friend says "No" to positive discrimination in favour of wimmin and my wife, who just happens to be a wimmin, agrees. So don't do it.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

[ Ed - Today's TFTD was preceded by an item about Skateboarding for Jesus. Unfortunately this is beyond parody. Even in my silliest imagination, I couldn't possibly make this any sillier. ]

The Mostly Irrelevant and Imminently Eminent Vincent Nichols, Archbigot of Westminster, has condemned the sinfulness of Facebook. As evidence for this, we have his Irrelevance's opinion, which is of course a very holy opinion and must be taken very seriously indeed. The internet provides many opportunities for sinning. People who are socialising on the internet are people who are not on their knees before a priest, as they should be. The archbigot even worries that spending too much time on Facebook will drive people to suicide.

This issue is of particular importance to Christianity which depends so much on "thick" communities. By this, I don't mean communities that are overweight, or groups of people who are just stupid (perish the thought), I mean people who are "thick" in that they have a strong group identity. Christianity relies on thick people. It's thick people who fill our pews. Thick people clean the church and provide much needed housekeepers. We need thick people to proclaim the word of the Invisible Magic Friend (whose metaphysical existence as an abstract concept we all have complete faith in). Without thick people I would have no one to preach to. I need thick people to pay my wages. I love thick people.

On the other hand, while social networking sites may indeed be causing the downfall of civilisation as we know it, my daughter quite likes to chat with her mates on them. I say "mates" rather than "friends", because I'm such a down to earth, easy going Rev. Canon Dr. and Chancellor Designate. It's of particular importance here in the City of London, with its wide diversity of anonymous bankers, where there are so few thick people to fill our congregations. Maybe I could find some thick people on Facebook?

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

Angela Tilby didn't do her regular TV critics spot last time. But never fear my Today Programme flock of sheep, I did a telly programme last time I was on, and can do the same today. It certainly beats having to read up on current affairs and trying to draw some tenuous connection with Jesus.

Do any of you watch "Who Do You Think You Are?", the programme that investigates famous personalities' ancestry? It unearthes some real heroes, and quite a few rotters. This week someone famous found an ancestor that suffered a tragedy and was really upset. It's brilliant! "Who am I?" is the most profound question anyone can ask about themselves. It's a question that lots of really clever people have asked. Is our personality just the combination of our experiences and environment superimposed on our genes? There must be more to us than this. Why? Because I say so, that's why.

It's simply not enough that we have a conscious mind capable of abstract reasoning and artistic creativity. I refuse to accept that I'm simply a clever monkey with a TV remote control. The Invisible Magic Friend, who created everything (I know this because the IMF's Big Book of Stories says so), also gave you, me and everybody else an invisible magic bit, all of our own! You can't see it, or hear it or touch it, or perform any kind of test to verify it, but it's definitely there - the Big Book of Stories confirms this too. That's what makes you who you are, that makes you you and gives you the ability to ask such deep and moving questions like "What's on the telly tonight?".

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

Earlier this year the Met Office forecast a BBQ summer. Now, with two thirds of the summer gone, they've changed their minds. That's what you get for placing your faith in science, with their pressure readings and satellite photos and computer models. Everybody knows science is a load of rubbish. I mean, as I sit here in the studio, broadcasting to you live over the airwaves, I ask you, what has science ever done for us?

As a writer, celebrity and Christian, I'd like to remind you of the proven power of prayer. If there's one thing guaranteed to improve the weather, it's prayer. I pray for good weather all the time and the Invisible Magic Friend occasionally obliges - what more proof do you need? Of course I feel terribly guilty when he does. I'm probably depriving some poor farmer somewhere of his much needed rain. God, do I feel guilty. I'm such a horrible, selfish, loathsome wretch, but please Invisible Magic Friend, can we have some nice weather this weekend?

Scientists will try to tell you that the weather is a complex interaction of differential heating, the planet's spin and the subsequent sea and air currents. Then they try to cover their backs by saying that it's inherently chaotic and difficult to forecast exactly. Yeah, like! Even fictional characters know that the IMF decides when it rains and when it doesn't, although, in the film Jean de Florette one of those fictional characters, in an irrational bout of rage, goes so far as to question the existence of the IMF. Phew, what a loony!

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Rating 4 out of 5 (Highly platitudinous)

In my loving Christian way, I was outraged, outraged I tell you, to hear of the bible defacing exhibition in Glasgow. There are only about 3 billion bibles in existence. How could anyone bring themselves to vandalise one of these rare and priceless items? These are the holy utterances of my Invisible Magic Friend! They wouldn't do it to the Koran, would they? Eh? Eh? There's a religion that really knows how to deal with mockers.

I calmed down however when I learned that this was, in fact, an attempt to engage with people of an alternative sexual inclination, who for some reason feel marginalised by the Church. The modern Church is really OK with people with a similar gender preference and doesn't pass judgement or condemn them for being unnatural, immoral or acting against the clear and unambiguous teachings of Leviticus and St. Paul. No, we don't do any of that sort of thing these days.

One of my favourite bits is the Book of Job. It's really funny. The IMF tortures this guy, called Job, by destroying all his possessions and killing all his children. All for a bet with the Invisible Magic Baddy. In the end, the IMF says, "Geee, you're so stupid and I'm so brilliant. Don't you ever question my almighty mercifulness again. Here, take your puny possessions, I'm bored." In a way it's just like the IMF making people who're attracted to those with a similar genital configuration and then writing that they should be put to death. He's got quite a sense of humour. How could people want to defile a book like that? I'm outraged, outraged I tell you.

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Rating 3 out of 5 (Fairly platitudinous)

The people of Wootton Bassett bow their heads to passing soldiers' funeral cortèges.

Some people express their grief this way. Others don't.
Some people grieve by crying. Others don't.
Some people grieve in silence. Others don't.
Some people grieve through laughter. Other's don't.
Some people grieve by fasting. Other's don't.

Fasting is my favourite way of grieving. That's the way Jews do it, so you can be sure it's a tried and trusted method. Jews are grieving today. It's yet another annual Jewish festival. This time it's Tish'ah be'Av, a fantastically gloomy, day long fast, mourning the loss of the first and second temples. You'd think we'd have gotten over it by now, but no, several millennia on, we're still wailing and quoting from Lamentations and going "Woe, woe and thrice woe, we've lost our lovely temple - again." I'm sure you'd all agree, it's pretty much the same as losing a loved one in battle. We'd build another one, but unfortunately its place is currently occupied by the 784'th holiest place in Islam, so we can't touch it.

I get people coming to my synagogue grieving all the time. Grief is one of our best selling products. You can always rely on a steady stream of business in the grief industry. It's pretty much recession proof.

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