Miles Kington - Welcome to Kington: The Selected Columns of Miles Kington

For decades, Miles Kington wrote columns for the Independent, the Times, and just about anyone else whod have him.

Welcome to Kington is a selection of just over a hundred of the very best: from unlikely agony aunts, to all-purpose Shakespeare plays, to interviews with sock psychologists. These columns amongst the best journalism and humorous writing of the past fifty years are classics of their genre.

A treasury of Kingtonia awaits you! Read on

I am privileged today to bring you another set of minutes from the most recent meeting of the United Deities, the regular get-together of gods past and present which assembles to survey how our poor old planet is getting on

1. The chairgod said that as usual the first item on the agenda was the possible merger between the Jewish God and the Christian God. He assumed that nothing had been done to effect a rapprochement between these two sister religions, or he might have heard about it on the grapevine.

2. The Christian God said it was not a good time of year for him to get anything done, as he had to deal personally with Christmas and attend millions of carol services and nativity plays, in spirit and in person, which was a bit of trial even when you were omnipresent.

3. The Jewish God said, with the best will in the world, baloney. It was a long time since Christianity had much to do with Christmas. It was just a feast of giving and taking, eating and drinking. After all, it was not even a Christian festival in essence it was an old pagan midwinter festival which had been taken over by the Christian God from the old Welsh gods.

4. A Welsh god said, not so much of the old, thank you very much.

5. The Jewish God said he was sorry.

6. The Welsh God said no offence taken.

7. The Jewish God reiterated his feeling that Christmas was Christian only in name. If any supernatural figure could take responsibility at Christmas time, it was not the Christian God, but Father Christmas. (Laughter). Come to think of it, continued the Jewish God, why had Father Christmas never been invited to attend one of these sessions?

8. The Christian God said he didnt want to cause the Jewish God any distress by breaking the news to him, but apparently Father Christmas didnt exist. (More laughter.) In any case, Christmas was not just a church festival; it was also his only sons birthday, and he felt quite strongly about that.

9. Zeus said that if he had to bother every time one of his hundreds of children had a birthday, he would be a suitable case for retirement. Why, he did not even know the names of half of them. But then, in his day, gods had a healthy sex life, unlike some namby pamby gods he could mention

10. The chairgod said this wasnt getting anywhere and if the Jewish God and Christian God approached reconciliation in this spirit, he wasnt surprised that it never happened.

11. The Christian God said maybe the big question was not why he and the Jewish God were not blood brothers, but why the Jewish God and Allah had not come to some agreement. After all, it was not Christianity and Islam that were daggers drawn in the Middle East.

12. The chairgod said he did not see why politics had to be drawn into this. It had been agreed long ago that the gods were not responsible for the actions of their followers. If they were, then every god should feel very guilty indeed, as humans tended to behave badly no matter who they followed.

13. Except, said Allah, followers of Buddha who did tend to be peaceable, and he would like to give them credit for that, and to apologise for what was done in the name of Islam to the biggest statues of Buddha in the world. Buddha said nothing as usual, but onlookers said they thought they detected a slight smile.

14. The Christian God said that if they thought Buddhists were exempt from bad behaviour, they were talking through their haloes. Burma was one of the principal Buddhist countries in the world, yet their history was hideously bloodstained

15. The chairgod intervened hastily to remind them that political point-scoring was a human vice, not a divine one, and at this rate they would be talking about sport, which was so far beneath contempt that even an Australian god would not descend to it, if there were one.

16. An Australian aboriginal god said, what did he mean, even if there were one? There were plenty. And the aboriginal folk didnt play any violent team games till the white man arrived, so to that extent they were more civilised.

17. The chairgod said, yes, well, he was sorry and now could they move on to the next item which was the state of play in North Korea?

    More of this tomorrow, I hope.

    And here it is:

18. The chairgod said that in view of the recent reports that North Korea was going to reactivate its nuclear programme and thus perhaps blow up the planet, and leave them all without any worshippers, they might perhaps call on a Korean god to comment, though he had to be absolutely honest and say he couldnt remember off-hand if there were any Korean gods.

19. So much for omniscience, said an unidentified Inca god, to laughter.

20. Omniscience was all very well, said the chairgod, but it was a relative thing. (More laughter.) Might he remind those present that although they were all omniscient, for otherwise they would not be gods, the truths they all knew differed alarmingly from each other. If this were not so, there would be no point in having these meetings.

21. Thor, Norse God of thunder, said he could not see any point in these meetings anyway, as they always ended peacefully in harmony. His idea of a good meeting, he said, was lots of hammers thrown and lots of people dead.

22. The chairgod said it was a lucky thing for the world that war gods were outnumbered by other gods more interested in agriculture and the sea, and so on.

23. A voice said that he was a Korean god and would be pleased to answer any questions.

24. He was asked to give his name.

25. He gave it.

26. It being impossible to pronounce, the chairgod directed that for the time being he should be referred to as Our Korean friend or perhaps the Divine Member for Korea (more laughter).

27. The Korean god said that things had been quite quiet recently, as antique dealers always said when business was disastrously slow. The fact of the matter was that for fifty years at least half the Korean nation had been in the hands of the Communists, who had declared that there were no gods. It was difficult for a god to do business with an atheist state.

28. The Russian Orthodox god said, excuse him, but fifty years only? Try doing business with a godless state for eighty or more years! It was a mighty advertisement for faith that Christianity had survived all that time under the Soviet system.

29. The chairgod said that faith kept everything going. Why, even after the collapse of Communism there were still people who were convinced Communists!

30. A Greek god said that maybe it was only possible to be a convinced Communist when there was no Communism around.

31. The chairgod said that that sounded clever but did it actually mean anything?