Big Daddy and the Wrinkly Reptile Sex Scandal

Son: The current revival of interest in dinosaurs is creating a

bit of a problem for avid readers of the Bumper Book of

Arabic Folklore, isn't it. Dad?

Dad: Indeed. Especially for those who believe that the Bumper

is literally true right down to the last misprint.

Son: Problem is that there is no mention of dinosaurs or

brontosaurs or pterodactyls or any of those outsize

reptiles anywhere in the Bumper and yet it is supposed to

be a history of everything from the year dot.

Dad: Well, of course, those opening chapters were written by

Moses and it is possible that he just forgot to mention the

dinosaurs. He probably wanted to get on quickly to the

exciting bits, about who begat Jokias, and whether

Gomesh begat Zackibat or vice-versa. He had a lot on his

mind, perhaps, and he rushed past the Jurassic era.

Son: Giant lizards twenty metres high and with a mouth like a

skip full of knives? Ruling the Earth for fifty million

years? And Moses fails to notice them? He must have

needed glasses like bin lids. I don't think anyone outside

Paisley's immediate family is going to be convinced by

that one.

Dad: I said that he forgot them, not that he didn't notice them.

R.E. Ingersoll, the famous American Humanist who

served in the American Civil War, has written

extensively on the Mistakes of Moses and some More

Mistakes of Moses. I was merely adding one more little

blunder to the pile, without wishing to make the

perpetrator look like a total moron.

Son: I don't see why we should provide any sort of a cover

story for him here in the BHG web-site. We have a duty to

the truth, you know.

Dad: Quite right. Son. I stand rebuked. But even you must

admit that there is always the possibility of a revised

edition of the Bumper which will somehow

accommodate dinosaurs into the Creation Myth.

Son: What, like having Eve being tempted by a talking

dinosaur, instead of a snake?

Dad: Well, snakes and dinosaurs are both reptiles. It could be

passed off as a new translation.

Son: Sorry, Dad, it won't work. A dinosaur could not hide

behind a tree and tempt the first woman with an apple.

Imagine the huge fangs and claws coming at you when

you are stark naked - you wouldn't waste much time on a

magic apple in its paw. You'd be roaring out of the

Garden like Nigel Mansell.

Dad: Yes, dinosaurs do have a certain presence, I must admit.

But that can be turned to good account. Some ancient

creatures with wrinkled skin and huge teeth and claws

are parading across our TV screens and doing very well

out of it.

Son: You mean the Joan Collinsosaurus, the chat-show

predator from the late Cretinaceous period? She seems to

have been around for millions of years.

Dad: She's a prime example of the species, but actually I was

thinking of the real Tyrantosaurus Wrex British

Economy, Mega Thatcheropod herself. She has been

sighted prowling around the cultural wastes of America,

uttering blood-curdling screams and sharpening her

claws to feed on Disastaurus Hague, the limping leader of

a herd of panic-stricken Tories.

Son: So the Thatcheropod is not extinct after all?

Dad: Unfortunately not. She is now employed by the

American tobacco giant, Philip Morris Inc., to promote

their deadly addictions in the Third World and Eastern

Europe; anywhere, in fact, that carcinogenic substances

are not in abundant supply. You know, what with selling

arms and missiles all round the world and now helping in

the spread of deadly diseases, Mega Thatcheropod has a

good claim to a directorship of The Grim Reaper plc.

Son: When I think of the ravaged state she left the NHS in, I

only hope that one day she will get a taste of her own

lack of medicine.

Dad: Maybe that is what was meant by Back to Basics: no

medicine, no schools, no hospitals, just Every Man for

Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost.

Son: A bit of a bum deal for the Devil, by the sound of it. But

actually, the policy is really Every Man for Whoever He

Can Get his Hands On. Remember all that fuss about

single-parent families and the great social problem they

represented? Now it appears that Tory politicians had

created most of the problem themselves. It's like Blue

Peter: "And here's another one I made earlier, but don't

try this at home unless you are sure you won't be

caught."

Dad: Hear, hear. Law and Order and Back to Basics - it has a

Frontier feel to it when you run them together. It conjures

up saddles and ropes and sleeping by the campfire under

the stars. I can picture John Wayne riding off into the

desert, getting back to his basics, dishing out law and

order as he goes.

Son: And selling arms, missiles, superguns and tobacco as a

side-line. "I don't like it here it's too quiet. Let me sell

you a couple of tanks and a missile launcher."

Dad: Ah yes, the joys of the simple life. Back to Basics puts

you in touch with Nature again that Nature which in our

modem sophisticated lives we can all so easily forget.

The Nature which the dinosaurs knew so well and which

we are all going to know intimately if things keep going

the way they are.

Son: Accentuate the positive. Dad. The big toothy dinosaurs

are museum pieces now and Thatcheropod and

Disastaurus Hague are heading the same way. Even Jurassic

Park has passed its peak. But while they are fading into

the past The Belfast Humanist Group is shining forth,

a beacon of rational, sceptical, common sense that beams

right up the nose of antiquated beliefs. We may be only two

fictional deities but wrapped in the pages of the BHG web-site

we glow like North Sea fish and chips.

Dad: Time up, Son. Let's glow.