When I graduated from the University in Birmingham* way, way back many centuries ago (1994 or so to be vaguely precise), I decided that now I had finished my education and avoided the dog shit illuminated by the single lampost in the rite of passage, I looked out towards the future with ambition and imagination.
Having spent some time looking out that way, I decided I couldn't be arsed doing anything about it so moved to Coventry instead.
It wasn't as much as a whim as it sounds, my bezzie** mate Al was at Cov University and I had spent a lot of time there. I hadn't really enjoyed the social life at Birmingham, I'm no working class hero but the vast majority of students there were from the kind of places that didn't require your house to have a number. Coventry, on the other hand, was full of smelly bastards with vague pretensions of a future in music and specific pretensions for drinking as much watery lager out of wobbly plastic pint pots as possible. My desire to not get a job and somehow elongate my elapsed time as a student led me to Coventry and a shared house with Al and three others.
But rather than being a utopia of student fun, long hair, and booze, the 12 months I spent there descended into a depressing malaise and once our lease was up I ran away, cut my hair, and got a job in a bank. Trust me, that made me the Spartacus of Earlsdon. This Midlands melancholy was amplified ten-fold by the fact that Coventry is more depressing than the statistician who discovered that Sweden is the suicide capital of Europe.
The reason for this ramble is that I found myself in Cov yesterday for, brace yourself, the "Kitchen and Bathroom Specialists Association Corporate Members Networking Forum". Suddenly living in Sweden seems quite cheery.
As I cabbed my way through towards the hotel, trying to keep my eyes shut and pretend I was in autumnal New England, I glimpsed a sign at the front of church. Now I'm a committed and practising aetheist as you know but even if I was wobbling in my conviction I don't think I'd be swayed by:
"I'm the only one who knows the real time and it's getting very late - God"
Now, let's assume for a moment that I believe there is a God***. Firstly it's not that much of a boast to say that he knows the time, surely he can afford a decent watch, what's interesting is that he knows the REAL time. This does go some way to explain God's omnipresence, presumably all he's done is make sure his earth-bound subjects are unknowingly working a couple of minutes behind him, that way he can get everywhere before they do. This supposed quote direct from God is also, I'm guessing, meant to inspire passing Coventarians to stop and enter the church for a quick pray, but all it seems to do is tell everyone that they should probably hurry up and get home sharpish. Even God wants to get out of Coventry as qickly as possible.
*There was a real thing at the time about how we should refer to the University we went to in Britain's second city. It was nothing short of heresy to describe it as "Birmingham University", no, no, no, it was "The University of Birmingham". The Metallurgy department (which I relunctantly attended) had special dispensation to call it Birmingham University for the single reason that "Birmingham University Metallurgists" spelt out BUM when printed on a sweatshirt.
**Scousers have an uncanny ability to abbreviate most words with the addition of a 'z' or 'o'. If you're as lazy as we are we can't even be arsed forming whole words. So, for example, "I'm off to visit my best friend in the hospital to give him his Christmas present" slack-jaws its way into "I'm off to see me bezzie mate in the hozzie to give him his chrizzie prezzie".
***Which I don't
