Captain Disillusion

The good Captain, as well as being a superhero, and having the top half of his face a peculiar colour, does a good John Cleese impression:



There's some excellent de-bunking here! Search for the rest of his stuff on YouTube, you won't be disappointed. He really needs a website to collect this stuff together.

Alternative energy

Personally I'd rather have a nuclear power station next door:

Sideways onto the runway

Now, those who know me are aware I'm pretty laid back about flying. Not much worries me. This would have worried me:



My mate Bryan would have enjoyed this.....

Disintegrator

A motorized cordless twin rubber band minigun, I dearly want one of these......



Forty rubber bands a second, it must be a bugger to load, though.

A motorbike moment

An Australian has broken the distance jumping record in Las Vegas.



He was flying for 322 feet, what I found more impressive was the height he got up to. Barking mad.......

Exorcism

Just when you think they can't get any dafter, you see this in The Telegraph: "The Roman Catholic Church has vowed to "fight the Devil head-on" by training hundreds of priests as exorcists."

As a footnote I see 'A Roman Catholic bishop has caused fury in Spain by claiming that some teenagers "want to be abused". Bishop Bernardo Alvarez of Tenerife told a newspaper: "There are 13-year-olds who are are in agreement and even want it; even, if you don't watch out, provoking you."'

Bernardo looks like one to watch.

Reformation

In 1517 Martin Luther nailed his 'Theses' to a church door in Wittenberg (it's a good trick if you can manage it!) and ultimately started the Protestant Reformation.

He was protesting, in the main, against the practice of selling indulgences and the Church's policy on purgatory. Some bloke called Johann Tetzel, a papal commissioner for indulgences, had been sent to Germany by the Roman Catholic Church to sell indulgences to raise money to rebuild St Peter's Basilica in Rome.

According to the Roman Catholic Church, sin-reduction is a two-step process. Guilt is absolved through confession and prayer, but punishment, on earth or in purgatory, can be avoided through indulgences. Now I think that Lourdes must be doing badly at the moment because the Pope (of Rome, do they still have one at Avignon?) has given a time limited offer: make a pilgrimage to Lourdes and receive, absolutely free, a papal indulgence.

These, of course, only let you off past sins, so be careful not to commit any more after receiving your indulgence, or you could still end up in purgatory.

There's a big pilgrimage industry to support here, people. Get it quick, the offer expires in December 2008. During the month of February a trip to any Lourdes related shrine is apparently good enough. It's a good job I've set up the Holy Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in the back garden, okay it's only a flowerpot with a plastic hedgehog perched on top of it, but I think it looks the business. Anybody is welcome to come over during February, and for a modest donation all your sins will be washed away.

Honestly, they would have thought that this was too far fetched in "Father Ted".