Scotland Yard investigates Moses

As part of the latest stage of Operation Yewsless, in which the police investigate the lives of dead celebrities to see whether they may have been sex offenders, Scotland Yard confirmed today that it was seriously looking at the Old Testament religious leader and lawgiver Moses. Naturally, most of Moses's alleged crimes would have taken place overseas, but there is a mysterious 40-year period when - according to scripture - he was wandering in the wilderness. This may mean that Moses spent some of this time in a British wilderness such as Croydon, Luton, or Dagenham. In any case the police are co-operating with Interpol on the affair.

Moses. "He gave me some strange tablets," said one contemporary accuser.

Moses is already under investigation by the Egyptian police for the crime of killing an Egyptian citizen (see Exodus 2). As they say round there, "Justice is slow but sure," and they expect to be ready to press charges within the next thousand years or so. But it now turns out that Moses may have done even worse things.

Some people are asking why Scotland Yard is wasting its time investigating crimes against dead people, rather than leaving that sort of thing to historians. Said Superintendent Grave of the Yard, "The alternative would be to use our scarce manpower for chasing modern criminals - burglars, muggers, that sort of thing - and frankly, it's much easier to track down and arrest dead celebrities. They won't be going anywhere."

It has been observed that some police will only investigate burglaries at even-numbered homes, a measure approved of by David Cameron (10, Downing Street), but not George Osborne (11, Downing Street).

St Thomas More. You can die, but you can't hide!

Following the publication of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, Sir Thomas More is now also on a list of people the police would like to question. "He may have already been executed on a trumped-up charge of treason, but that doesn't mean that we can't still make life uncomfortable for him," explained Superintendent Grave. "So far we have no evidence against him, other than a general impression from Dame Hilary's book that More was up to no good. Still, we cannot rule out the possibility that he was at the centre of a vice ring involving sex slaves, drugs, and hate crime. After all, he was a Catholic."

William Blake. What were these "arrows of desire" that he boasted of?

Grave of the Yard has also tracked down the author of a familiar hymn about "arrows of desire", and identified him as a Mr Blake, now deceased. "We would like to question Mr Blake, as these "arrows of desire" sound very suspicious to us. We have also ascertained that Blake was encouraging people to sing "songs of innocence and experience". Do I need to say more?

The investigation is expected to finish some time within the next century.

Hilary Mantel rewrites the New Testament

After the runaway success of "Wolf Hall" with its novel thesis that Thomas Cromwell was a hero and that the nasty Catholic St Thomas More was a villain, the great Dame Hilary Mantel is said to be working on a new novel "Goat Hall". We shall explain the title later.

A powerful King with a beard.

In "Goat Hall", there is a powerful King with a beard, this time called Jesus, who is surrounded by warring subjects. One of these is Peter, who although revered nowadays as a saint and martyr, was in fact the first Catholic, and therefore automatically "not respectable". (Apologies to our readers from other denominations: you may wish to point out that Peter was also the first Anglican, the first Lutheran, the first Methodist, and the first Calvary Chapel worshipper. Clearly, he was not the first Baptist: that was John.)

The hero of Hilary Mantel's "Goat Hall" is of course Judas Iscariot, who most historians think of as one of the most repulsive villains of that time. Luckily Dame Hilary is there to put them straight: she points out that he was on excellent terms with the King, and on one memorable occasion gave him an affectionate kiss.

Proof that Judas was on good terms with the King.

After the Resurrection, Peter disappears to an obscure administrative position in Rome, where he eventually meets his come-uppance. The novel focuses more on the fate of its hero Judas. Did he hang himself, or was he murdered? Is the reference to his bowels gushing forth a sign that he was poisoned by jealous Catholics?

It is confidently expected that the book, and its dramatization as a TV series, together with "Goat Hall" souvenir mugs and tee-shirts, will make at least 30 pieces of silver for Dame Hilary's MANTELTRASH® company; moreover, she will no doubt win even more ludicrous prizes and awards on the strength of it.

So all that remains is to explain the title of the book.

A Judas goat leading lambs to the slaughter. Or Hilary Mantel leading her readers.

Hilary Mantel - not the villain that everyone thought?

A new BBC television drama Wife Hil tells the story of the Elizabethan woman Dame Hilary Mantel. History has not treated her kindly and she is regarded by some Catholics as a cruel and unpleasant woman who chose to persecute them. Most people remember her words that the Catholic Church "is not an institution for respectable people," and many faithful Catholics were severely traumatised when they discovered that Dame Hilary did not regard them with respect.

"Dame Hilary doesn't respect me. How can I live this down?"

One firm supporter of Hilary Mantel is Tommy Cromwell, the author of Wife Hil. "You have to realise that Dame Hilary held views that were very common amongst twenty-first century intellectuals," he explains. "For example, her confession that she fantasized about the murdering of Margaret Thatcher was perfectly normal amongst lefties of the time; likewise her description of the future Queen Catherine as 'a shop window mannequin', although it could be seen as unpleasantly personal bullying, merely indicated that she did not feel that the princess lived up to her own standards of beauty and elegance."

The beautiful Dame Hilary. When you pulled her nose, her eyes rotated in opposite directions.

The public is avidly waiting for future instalments of Tommy Cromwell's Wife Hil saga in order to discover the ultimate fate of Dame Hilary. Like her, Tommy was born a Catholic but later turned to the dark side, so he has a unique insight into the psychological problems this may cause. One possible version of the story says that Dame Hilary was unable to survive in a position of power after making enemies of the Church, the Crown, and the Government. It is not clear whether the final outcome was her execution for treason and heresy on Tower Hill.

Tommy Cromwell, the prize-winning writer.

Hillary Mental not for respectable people

Our literary editor (who is not a saved pusson) writes:

Catholic leaders today claimed that the Booker prize-winning novelist Hillary Mental was "not for respectable people." Although given every advantage in life, including a Catholic upbringing, she had turned to the dark side, and was a deeply sinister person.

In 2010, Mrs Mental said that girls were ready to have babies at 14. "Having sex and having babies is what young women are about, and their instincts are suppressed in the interests of society's timetable," she said (yes, really). Catholic leaders have seized on this as being the sort of scandalous comment which leads to child abuse.

Asked if he would call for Hillary Mental on his deathbed, Archbishop Vincent Nichols said, "Certainly not. What a stupid idea."

Sister Muriel, one of the nuns who ran the Catholic school at which Mrs Mental was educated, said, "She was always a troublesome child, scribbling rude words on bits of paper when she should have been listening to her teachers. No wonder she's turned out badly."

Hillary Mental is the author of Wolf Hall, of which Susan Bassnett in the Times Higher Education Supplement said:  "I have yet to meet anyone outside the Booker panel who managed to get to the end of this tedious tome," placing her work on a par with the immortal The Da Vinci Code.

Cardinal Sean Brady has offered protection to Mrs Mental, in case she feels threatened by outraged Catholics, although, he said, "She really is not a respectable person."