Marketing tips...

I am a bona fide atheist. Nothing could make me interested in joining a church, or an organised religion. That's not to say that I don't have a set of beliefs, etc. It's just to say I don't believe in any kind of creator or a guiding hand. I try to be Alan McRational, and I like me some of that thing called 'evidence' - give me a randomised control trial over one of the gospels any day... (that pretty much comes with the territory when you are a researcher).

Anyhow, loads and loads and loads of arguments about the whole religion/ atheism debate abound, and I don't really want to get into them here. People have largely made their minds up, and I'm not trying to make anyone change what they believe (which is why I get so annoyed at religious door knockers coming to my home and trying to change my mind). In any case, (a) the God Delusion and (b) the Origin of the Species make the arguments for atheism/ evolution (and anti organised religion/ creationism) better then I ever could. But anyhow. I have some marketing advice for religions and the religious. Hummus.

Yep. Hummus.

Don't look so surprised! Everyone *knows* hummus is *amazing*. In fact, I was thinking just the other day that hummus may well be the greatest thing ever invented. Sod fire, sod the wheel and sod sliced bread[see note 1 below], hummus beats it all. Hummus is indescribably *brilliant*.

So how does this relate to the better marketing of religion? It's simple really; in heaven, don't promise 72 virgins, don't promise ambrosia, don't promise angels on white clouds, promise this. A sea of hummus with warm-toasted-pitta-bread-islands. Easy.

*** Note 1: The saying "the best thing since sliced bread" is perhaps the most stupid sentence in the history of humankind. Why? Well if someone says "get some *nice bread* in for tea/ supper" (delete according to socio-economic class ;-) ) they don't mean for you to get a loaf of Mighty White, they mean a nice big crusty *uncut* loaf that you can carve huge wedges out of. So, "the best thing since sliced bread" actually means "the best thing since someone went and cocked up something that used to be awesome and replaced it with something decidedly average". Sliced bread is to food what Fonzy jumping the shark is to TV, in other words.

Enough!

Onwards!

Levin

Inherited stupidity...

Some of the really stupid things prior owners of my house have done:

1. Removed the period features in some - but not all - of the rooms.

It wasn't enough to remove the nice period features, no... this act of idiotic cultural barbarism had to be done in an inconsistent and basically random manner...

2. Putting patterned and textured wallpaper - on the ceiling.

In what universe could that ever make sense? Oh, the 1970s? Well it seems to me the 1970s has some apologising to do... if only for making the 1980s possible...

3. Fitting the kitchen sink so low it blocks the stop tap.

Yep. If you want to turn the water supply to the washing machine off, then you need to take the sink out of the kitchen worktop. Brilliant.

4. Building a fake 'wall' out of relatively flimsy wood in the bathroom. Next to the shower head. Then tiling over it and - one can only assume - hoping the magic water-vapour-fairies* stop the wood ever getting damp.

Idiots.

5. Putting big slabs of asbestos on the shed roof. Correction: on two-thirds of the shed roof...

The inconsistency is what drives me mad! If you're going to put/ leave asbestos on something, why put/ leave it on two-thirds of it?!?!

Any tales of inherited stupidity you care to share?**

Onwards!

Levin

*There's no such thing as magic water-vapour-fairies. Sorry to disappoint.
**You lose points for the answer "The Presidency of George W Bush". Too obvious.