This is me, Eccles

This is me, Eccles
This is me, Eccles
Showing posts with label An Appetite for Wonder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label An Appetite for Wonder. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

The Book of St Richard, Chapter 18

Continued from Chapter 17

1. So it came to pass in the year of Our Lord two thousand and thirteen that Richard decided to write the story of his life.

2. And he entitled it An Appetite for Honey. For he was exceedingly fond of honey.

An Appetite for Honey

Richard encourageth a bee to make honey.

3. But his publishers changed the title to An Appetite for Wonder, in the hope of selling more copies, yeah even unto the man who hateth honey.

4. Meanwhile, Richard had been promised his own Book in the new edition of the Bible (that which is called Bible II), but he was not due to obtain any royalties from it.

5. Moreover, he had his own message for the world, namely, "I am the cleverest person who ever lived, and it is a scandal that I am not yet Sir Richard Dawkins, member of the Order of Merit, and Knight of the Garter."

Order of the Garter

The wicked man himself thinks only of honey.

6. "For I am a man of authority, having disciples under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. For their brains have been washed."

7. So Richard published his book, and many men mocked, saying "Ha ha."

8. Next, it came to pass that Richard planned a great journey, by means of a huge bird made of metal, which is called Aer-o-plane.

9. And he said, "I shall carry with me a quantity of honey, lest a famine strike me down during the flight, and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." For he was still exceedingly fond of honey.

10. And those who knew more about these things, some of whom were holy and learned men, said, "Think ye that it is wise, thus to challenge the laws of man?" But Richard heeded them not.

Priest

Think ye that it is wise, my son?

11. And it came to pass that a man, whose name was Dundridge, said unto Richard. "Oi! thou canst not take thy honey with thee on the flight. For it may be the fabled honey of Bin Laden, which goeth 'Bang!'"

12. And Richard was exceeding wrathful, and spake, saying, "Dost thou not know who I am? I am Professor Richard Dawkins, FRS, he who invented genes and memes, and whose watches are repaired by a blind man. Know ye that my honey goeth not 'Bang!' For is it not written: Out of the pie came forth meat and out of the honey pot came forth sweetness?"

13. But Dundridge took the honey from the hands of Richard, and put it in a large box marked "SWAG", along with nineteen bottles of water, a vial of gin, some cream that protecteth the skin from the sun, and, as it happens, a bottle of nitroglycerine.

14. And Richard was exceeding wrathful and shouted in a loud voice: "WOE IS ME! BIN LADEN HATH WON!"

15. But the friends of Richard clubbed together, and brought him many gifts of honey, so that thenceforth Oxford was indeed a land flowing with milk and honey.

honey

Richard receiveth many jars of honey.

16. And, ever since then, the third day of November has been a day on which men light bonfires, and put a "Richard" on top, and explode pots of honey, so that they forget not the grievous sufferings of Richard.

Continued in Chapter 19.


The Book of St Richard started here.

Monday, 23 September 2013

An Appetite for Wonder

We are delighted to be able to print an extract from Richard Dawkins's new book An Appetite for Wonder, the first instalment of his long-awaited autobiography.

bug in jar

This bug in a jar proves the non-existence of God.

From an early age I realized two things:
1. I am the cleverest person who ever lived, even greater than my hero Charles Darwin.
2. God does not exist.

You can keep all your great thinkers and philosophers: Aquinine, St Augustus, Decarthorse (memo: check names). They weren't fellows of New College, Oxford with their own Foundation. Nowadays, nobody has heard of them, except the Regius Professor of Divinity, and what does he know about the personal hygiene of flies? Well, there you are.

At school I won all the prizes: the Mrs Joyful Prize for Raffia-Work, the Charles Darwin Prize for Cricket (my essay on "why crickets don't need bats" was reprinted in the school magazine), and of course the Victor Ludorum Prize for the largest brain, measured at Standard Temperature and Pressure.

ugly fish

Would a loving God have allowed such an ugly fish to exist?

Where was God in all this, you may ask? Was He there when I called upon Him, at the age of five, to strike Nanny with a thunderbolt? No, all He gave her, in answer to my prayers, was a slight sniffle, and that would probably have happened anyway after I poured lemonade down her neck.

Darwin is really cool, don't you think? He debated with his critics in a masterly way. I admire the fact that he used to make public pronouncements saying that all Catholics were "vile"! Why on earth didn't they give him a knighthood? Come to think of it, why on earth don't they give me a knighthood? Or, better still, a peerage? I can trace my ancestry back to Sir Richard Dawknobs, the 18th century composer, who many said was greater than Handel. (See pages 48 to 61 for my family tree.)

dunce's cap

At school they gave me a special cap to wear.

The secret to life, by the way, is genes. And memes. And - a new hybrid that everyone has missed - gnomes! Basically, a human being is just a gnome's way of making another gnome. And you can never have too many gnomes. Gnomes are denizens of geological time: gnomes are forever.

Dawkins and horses

In Volume 2 - how the Catholic Mafia sent me horses' heads.