Shut up. It’s food, not the renaissance.

I think I have to stop watching television.

Based on my extensive research, if you turn on the telly there is now a 103% chance that you will come across some kind of cookery show.

I used to like cookery shows. I used to like it when they cooked something that I might one day eat myself, like chicken doused in curry powder or something involving fish fingers. I didn’t even mind when it got a bit fancy; aspiration is good. As long as it was vaguely humble or realistic, and there was at least a tacit acknowledgement that they what they were actually making was food and not a recreation of the happy tears of God, that was pretty much fine.

I’ve been drawn into Great British Menu recently. In much the same way a bear trap draws you in – whenever I encounter it I end up swearing, shouting and missing a leg.

Again, the first series, fine. This series, however, has disappeared so far up its own arse that it’s trying to serve it’s own kidneys as a delicious amuse bouche with some duck’s milk creme fraiche.

Last week I watched a man, who is paid to professionally cook food, that he was going to create a witty deconstruction of a kebab.

He then proceeded to just make a kebab. A regular doner kebab. He then served it in a kebab box. He then put it in a bag.

Creamy. Unctuous. Aggressively avant garde. A revolution!

Today another man made a salad, then put it in a box with a barcode on it. Like they do in exclusive shops like Tesco. The voiceover described it as ‘quirky’ at least nine times and then his fellow contestants fawned over how quirky it was to serve a salad in a box.

They ought to come to my work cafe, they’ll have a fit.

I know food has a propensity to get a bit wanky, but we’ve now reached new heights in self-aggrandising bollocks. This isn’t just restricted to the tellybox. In London you can’t move without walking into the next hot Japanese-Ethiopian fusion indie new popup inside a functioning crack den where everything is cooked by trained pianists using irons and served by people who hate you.

And the language! I won’t go into a restaurant any more unless the grub has been described as orgasmic, groundbreaking, edgy, clever and overtly sexual – anything less suggests that somebody may have shat in the fairtrade peas. Even if you want something simple as sausage and mash in even a mediocre pub restaurant you now have to read a brief statement indicating the pig’s breed, name and marital status. This vital information also appears to lead to a £4 surcharge on your dish. I do not care whether the pork was rare breed or found wandering drunk along the M4. It’s now in a sausage.

Don’t get me wrong, I love food. I’m an eater. But please, please can we get over this bullshit?

I had toast for dinner. It was brilliant.

“Er, you can’t just quit mate”, God tells Pope

God has reacted furiously after his representative on Earth declared he was resigning from a post which is very much in the ‘job for life’ category.

The pontiff, 85, has decided to leave the Vatican as he feels unable to perform his papal duties any longer. He has declined to outline which duties out of sitting down, wearing large hats, tweeting and subtly promoting intolerance he is now physically unable to perform.

God, ∞, was less than sympathetic to his employees resignation:

“Frankly, this is bullshit of the highest order. I absolutely fail to comprehend how somebody can be too old to be Pope. There’s nothing new to fear, there’s no terrifying change to worry about, you sit on your arse 24 hours a day and get paid to hold incredibly old-fashioned views and you get to wear loose, comfortable garments which allow easy access to sponge-bathers. It is tailor-made for the elderly and infirm.

“Besides, John Paul II was actually dead for the last three years of his reign, and he is widely regarded as a man who got shit done.”

Will absolutely rinse the stationery cupboard when he leaves.

Vatican officials are working like demons this evening to suppress claims that God might have made a mistake when he used his divine will to elect Cardinal Ratzinger, then a whippersnapper of 78.

“God knew this would happen. In many ways, it’s God’s way of showing us he loves us and should continue chanting things at him and giving him money,” said a Vatican official this evening.

In slightly contradictory remarks, God said: “I had no idea this was going to happen. I keep telling people: I’m not actually omniscient, I’m just good at pub quizzes.”

What the Pope will do now is a hotly-debated topic, with many expecting him to start a music career and release a solo album by the end of the year. Others are drawing the inevitable comparison between the pontiff joining Twitter and then quickly leaving his job, leading to speculation that he might pursue a career putting witty put-downs and pithy remarks into 140 characters or less.

One avenue that the soon to be ex-Pope will be keen to avoid is death, as it will place him in a pretty awkward situation. If God is not real, he will have wasted his entire life and will feel something of a tit. If, on the other hand, God is real, it will set up a meeting with his former employer, who might just be a tad pissed off.

And if the Bible has taught us one thing, it is that God has a short fuse and no sense of restraint.

“Things are going to get spicy”, grinned God, cracking his infinitely-loving knuckles.

New record for sentences beginning with ‘I’m not a homophobe, but…’

Britain’s self-professed homophobes have suffered an uneasy day today as they furiously battled not to be seen as homophobes whilst making outrageously homophobic statements.

At the last count some minutes ago, 24,000 sentences had been opened with the words “I’m not a homophobe, but…”, or “Now, I’ve got nothing against it, but…”, followed by an incredibly bigoted remark.

The homophobes, representing over 50% of Tory MPs and around 0.3% of normal people, spent the afternoon constructing hilariously awkward and misjudged arguments about why two people getting married who happen to be of the same sex was dangerously wrong. This is the part of the show where I usually make up whimsical quotes to suit the story I’m writing, but tonight I’m going to just go ahead and use real ones, because they’re funnier.

Sir Roger Gale, absolutely unknown until he opened his cakehole today, opined:

“It is not possible to redefine marriage. Marriage is the union between a man and a woman, has been historically, remains so. It is Alice in Wonderland territory, Orwellian almost, for any Government of any political persuasion to seek to come along and try to re-write the lexicon. It will not do.”

This is a delightful statement because nobody has any idea what the fuck this man means. Alice in Wonderland territory? Orwellian? Turns out Orwell’s most oft-quoted line should actually read:

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever. And some dudes getting married.”

The part about re-defining marriage is also a stunner. Marriage gets re-defined all the time. Up until 1991 a man could rape his wife without an fear of recrimination; the state apparently taking the phrase “I do” to mean “it’s yours whenever you want it”. Wonder how many people kicked off about that re-definition?

Up until 1949 you could marry a 12 year old girl. People were presumably less fussy about protecting the ancient tradition of marriage when they realised the ramifications of that particular piece of history.

Finally, it wouldn’t be a homosexuality debate without somebody referring to the good old-fashioned Bible. Plenty of people cracking out Leviticus quotes today about men lying with men and such. That’s fine. For balance, here are some other points in the same book:

Menstruating women are unclean

Don’t mix seeds when sowing a field or wear a garment with mixed fibers

“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”

If you have sex with a slave woman, you must then scourge her.

Leviticus. It’s fun and full of great lessons and useful tips for daily life. No more mixed fibre clothes for me.

All in all, positive news.

Gay couples in the UK, finally, in 2013, have the right to join millions of man-lady couples in a long, sad life of boredom, bitterness, resentment and passive-aggressive hate. Basically a very drawn-out suicide pact.

To marriage!