bee feast

The guy from the Hindu council got the biggest laugh of the Trafalgar Square vigil, somewhere in the midst of a chant which was intended to 'create a shield', he said. It had healed the incurably sick, torn down walls - he sold it pretty well. Even through my tiny telly, though, the atmosphere of a crowd braced to conceal its embarrassment with polite attentiveness was palpable. It was bound to go on for that bit too long, and it did, and there was something terribly satisfying in that. And patronising as this will surely sound, it was sweet.

It was nice to see all the religious leaders standing shoulder to shoulder (is there no escape from the dread cliche? Only time will tell. At the end of the day. Bleeeeeee), but especially nice that the Bishop and the Rabbi both gave mad props to heathens in their speeches. Bish: ". . . Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews or people of no particular faith. . ." Good man! Rabbi: ". . .whether Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, atheist or agnostic. . ." Applause! A small revolution takes place; 'atheist' is taken out of the list of synonyms for 'spiritually destitute swine with morals of stoat' and recognised as the generic term for Nice People Who Make Up Their Own Beliefs.

I'm sure religous leaders aren't nuts about atheists, just as Raleigh aren't too chuffed about kids making their own go-karts out of old prams, but it's good that they're recognising them. The absence of them in these kinds of speeches about unity and tolerance has always rankled with me, as if only the God-fearing deserve the respect of others. Perhaps organised religion is tempted to see atheists as floating voters (no, agnostic doesn't mean 'undecided', it means 'accepting there is no proof' - therefore you must be either an agnostic theist accepting there can't be proof of God, or an agnostic atheist accepting there can't be proof of no God. Here endeth the lesson chillrun), but I'm very pleased that it is publicly acknowledging atheists as worthy members of society, deserving of not being blown up by bombs.

And only a couple of decades since Daddy Bush wrote them off as barely human. Although that is America, and things are different there, and although church and state are meant to be separate they are giving each other hand-jobs under the table as if no one is looking, and I'm sure that being an atheist in most of the US is still rather a hard slog.

Sherman: What will you do to win the votes of the Americans who are Atheists?

Bush: I guess I'm pretty weak in the Atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.

Sherman: Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are Atheists?

Bush: No, I don't know that Atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

Sherman: (somewhat taken aback) Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation of state and church?

Bush: Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not very high on Atheists.

Please, someone ask his kid the same question. It'll be funny.

The Catholic Primate Cormac You Darned MacMurphy O'Connor Begorrah the Third rather spoiled the mood after that by being stuffy and creepy and full of his own agenda, but baby steps, baby steps. Ken Livingstone was inspiring again. "They hoped we would turn on each other, like animals in a cage, but they failed. . .". Seb Coe was bumbling and irksome. I don't like that man. Jo Brand said Londoners were "tough bastards" and got a large cheer, which seemed to be two-parts relief at the yummy transgressive normality of a swear word at a sombre gathering.

So the usual mixture of clumsiness and genuine inspiration, which probably sent a lot of people away bored a bit shitless, and all is right with the world. I hope this is where the marking of the event stops, because you must not elevate these things too much.

Blair has gone from using sensible descriptive words like 'outrage' to the good old reliable fallback 'evil', and I'm sure everyone in London feels so much better for it.

I answer the back door to P who is standing in the sunlit yard, resplendent in DEFY (or similar sentiment of peaceful protest) THE G8 top (orange skull on black).

P: Hellooooo.

B: Hi P. How are you?

P: I'm fine, yeah. I just wanted to give you this, for feeding Cat (hands over box of Cadbury Snaps) - ooh and from when I borrowed your car (hands over two quids).

B: Ahhh - thanks, you didn't have to. Let me know if you ever need it again.

P: I will. We've just been making broomsticks out of the willow in the garden, so I'm going to sell those to try and raise money to get a market stall. . .how are things with you?

B: Muh. Alright. Not great.

P: Well, I've got a new song that will cheer you up. Would you like to hear it?

B: Er. . .yeah, go on then.

P: It's called 'Cunt'.

B: (smiles)

P: Cuuuunt, cuuunt, minge, vaginaaaaa. . .

B: (grins)

P: (something something, lyrics were lost as I tried to wrap my brain around what I was hearing) laaadyhole. . .it's the holiest hole of all. . .it's where we all come froooom. . .(P dances and claps hands. K, never one to miss a party, jumps up. P holds his paws and dances with him). . .it's where we all come from! Heh heheheheheh!

B: (bewildered, but indeed cheered) Heh heheheheheh! Did you learn that in Edinburgh?

P: Oh yes, it came out of the field, we were all singing it. I was singing it on the bus on the way back and this woman said, "Why are you singing that? It's disgusting!" She was going "I hope you don't think you're going to get the attention of all the men on this bus." I said, "I'm not, I'm just singing a new song, I thought you'd like to hear it." She said "Well, I don't." So I said, tee hee, "Don't you think your cunt is beautiful?" And she said "No!!". And I said "Well mine is!"

B: (thinks: I am really going to miss her.)

In which Bee refrains from posting at any length because it will descend into self-centred implosive whinge about money, anger, frustration, inertia and the postman leaving the gate open.

I must try and take some pretty pictures. It's just too damn hot. And I don't know how to charge the batteries. And if I'm going to take pictures of anything I haven't already taken pictures of I'll have to actually leave the house which I'd rather not do because it's so damn hot and also I seem to propagating some new late-twenties-onset strain of agoraphobia. And - not that I could take the dog with me anyway, but the fields I used to run him in this time last year are still full of sheep and now up for sale, with 'development potential'. This is depressing on at least eight and a half levels.

But moreover I wish I could say or do something for people in the thick of it in London. It's just impossible. I don't know if that's my inadequacy or just that it's a dusty junk-filled corner of human nature that hardly anyone is up to tackling, but it's unpleasant, whichever.

Fucking everything.