work the banana. cradle the grapes. say my name.

Let's laugh at some lunatics: we haven't done that for a while. Here's the priceless Ray Comfort on why bananas - yes, bananas - prove the existence of God. Stop sniggering at the back.

Well, obviously there's a couple of problems with this, most notably that the banana in its current form is a prime example of deliberate cultivation and artificial selection by man (wild bananas being somewhat lumpy and unpalatable). Also, because the propagation process involves non-sexual reproduction (cuttings taken from cuttings taken from cuttings, and so on) and therefore all cultivated bananas being genetically identical, the current Cavendish strain is in danger of being wiped out (as a commercially viable concern, at least) by disease, just as its apparently more delicious predecessor the Gros Michel was in the 1950s. Not a very clever piece of "design" after all, then, really.

Amusingly, Comfort now claims that the video that's been doing the rounds for some time now has been "doctored", and that the original version a) contained some reference to a can of Coke, which was removed, and b) was a parody anyway. So to ignorance about fruit cultivation and the theory of evolution you can add not knowing what the word "parody" means. And, if you were feeling particularly judgmental, being a big fat liar who looks just a little bit like a 1970s German porn star. Isn't there something in the Ten Commandments about not lying? I don't know about the porn star bit, maybe that business about not coveting thy neighbour's ass covers it.

There are other problems with the banana theory, such as this: if the banana's seemingly perfect design proves, or at least strongly suggests, the existence of God, what about things that are more difficult to eat? Why is it so bloody messy eating a mango? What about all those spiky bits on the outside of a pineapple? And don't even get me started on vegetables. Is the globe artichoke conclusive proof for the existence of Satan? I would say yes: yes it is.

Finally, consider this: are we saying everything shaped roughly like a banana was designed specifically for fitting in the human mouth? Try that one on your girfriend tonight and see how far you get. Or, conversely, are we saying that every orifice in the human body of roughly similar dimensions to the mouth was specifically designed for having bananas stuck in it? Try that one.....well, you get the idea.

Ray's blog can be found here and has lots more stuff to amuse, astound and stupefy.