22.13 pm. "I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of Here" has just finished. Unlike Fripp, I do not have ITV 2, so I cannot be tempted to follow the antics of Toyah and her nine fellow prisoners through the night. It is worryingly compelling viewing : a modern reinvention of the Victorian Freak Show, with the only saving grace that the "celebrities" are relatively wealthy volunteers (and the charitable contributions).
Fripp flies out tomorrow to support his little wife, and I am sure she will do well. She has the perfect balance of the wild and the sane. Robert in the jungle - now that would be worrying!
22.30 pm. I paused briefly to read Punk's Corner, and the "eternal debate" continues : Do we have a soul, are we different from the animals, the balance between the rational and the irrational. The fact that this debate is happenning at all is an example of the "otherness" that we all experience at times. I had found myself increasingly wrestling with these thoughts, only to find that they were already happening - live on the guestbook, entirely unprompted.
For myself I cannot accept that man is different from the animals. If I have a soul, then I see no reason not to grant one to the animals. Or to the trees for that matter. Nor do I think that any one religion holds the answer. I am sure that all the major religions can fulfil a devout follower. No God would condemn someone to heaven or hell through a mere accident of geography. Why must evangelists always seek exclusivity? : "I am the way the truth, and the light. No man comes to the father except through me".
But then you know this already. Just like the fact that the Christian belief in heaven was perverted into a convenient way of keeping the underclasses in place : This life may be shitty, but don't worry the next one will be OK. And I learnt today that the Islamic equivalent is the promise of 72 Virgin brides for martyrdom.
But enough of this. A visitor might think the "The Vicar" site is about religion, not sex and drugs and rock n roll. Does anyone have any good rock stories to tell?
"Be very careful about the beginning.
Then, be very careful about the end.
Then, be very careful about the middle."
