“Word has reached me,” said The Voice, “that something is going to occur today. Something that could jeopardize my plans. And we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we, Wingarde?”

“Certainly not, sir,” said Wingarde, flushing the toilet and pulling up his pants.

“So you’re going to deal with it for me.”

“Oh, must I?” Wingarde complained. “I have to meet the Beatles. Do you think Lennon will remember me?”

“I shouldn’t think so, no. But I want you to go to the allotments and dig up—”

“Allotments?” went Wingarde. “Dig up?” went Wingarde.

“Your AK47,” said The Voice.

“My what? My what?”

“Wingarde. You and I have been reshaping history. Reshaping history so that we can reshape the future. This time the future will go the way that I want it to go and nothing and no one will stand in my way. Do I make myself clear, Wingarde? Do I?”

“Yes, sir, yes.” Wingarde clutched at his head. “But couldn’t you get someone else to do whatever it is? Get True Father to do it. He wouldn’t mind if you told him.”

“I do not wish Dr Tril … er … I mean, True Father … I do not wish True Father to hear my voice. You will do it, Wingarde. You will do it because I’m telling you to do it. You will do it, or else!”

Wingarde mumbled and grumbled and fretted.

“And I’ll tell you what else you’ll do.”

“What’s that?” mumble-grumbled and fretted the lad.

“Wash your hands before you leave this bathroom. Ghastly little bugger.”

(The song of Christeen, twin sister of Jesus Christ, written out of the New Testament because her brother was given editorial control.)

My mother Mary’s pretty big with the Catholics,

And my brother’s still pulling them in.

He’s been at the top

Two thousand years non-stop

I think it’s a sin.

I’ve been cheated of my place in history,

Robbed of my moment of fame.

Thrown on the dole

Cos the starring role

Went to my brother and I think it’s a shame.

But God still thinks he’s number one,

He smiles upon his only son.

And I get nothing thrilling

No, not even second billing.

Chorus

Though I’m

God’s only daughter

I never got a walk on the water.

I never got a word in the Bible, no, nothing at all.

I’m God’s only daughter,

I really do feel that I oughta

Have something to say.

Maybe today.

Statues of mother are weeping,

You should see them pulling a crowd.

But brother J’s

Found another way.

He’s got his face on the Turin Shroud.

Though I keep telling Dad I don’t like it,

He doesn’t hear a word that I say.

I can tell it’s no use

When he makes some excuse,

And says he’ll work it out on Judgement Day.

But I can hear them upstairs chatting,

And even though they talk in Latin,

I know exactly what they’re saying:

“We’ve gotta keep the plebs from praying to—”

Chorus

I’m prepared to start in a small way,

I wouldn’t make too much noise.

Just a manifestation

To a small congregation

Made up of teenage boys.

Somewhere sunny, like California,

Twenty acres fronting onto the sea.

When you’re God’s daughter

You can’t afford t’

Be without some decent property.

I’d appear on every chat show,

I know how to knock ’m flat, so

Strike up the band with the drummers drumming.

Stop the world, cos Christeen’s coming.

Chorus

(Repeat chorus with huge orchestral backing, etc.)

Johnny Quinn would have been chuffed.

To have seen Armageddon: The Musical performed as a rock opera, live upon stage in front of one hundred thousand young men in black T-shirts and shorts. That would have been quite something. That would have made his day.

But sadly old Johnny couldn’t make it there in person. He had long since traded in his Biro for a shroud. And although it would be nice to think that he was sitting up there on a cloud somewhere, smiling down upon the proceedings, it is far more likely that he is way down deep in a place less pleasing, having the most popular prison pastime inflicted upon him by demons with bad breath and pointy peckers.

So Johnny wouldn’t be seeing the show. Which was a shame, because it was a killer.

The Gandhis looked the business and the Gandhis were the business. They were rock stars and they did what rock stars do.

You can keep all your rappers in sportswear. And your dressed-down bands from the North. And you can forget all that crap about, “We’re into music, not image”, or worse than that …

UNPLUGGED

Any musicians who play UNPLUGGED should be taken out quietly and put to the sword. A rock star should look like a rock star and a rock star should play like a rock star. And that means the twenty-minute Stratocaster solo and that means hair and that means leather. And if it’s too loud you’re too old.

And if you don’t like it, then you can, in the words of Axl Rose, “just fuck off.”

And another thing, too, while we’re at it. It is not just the right of every young person to go off to a three-day rock festival, get smashed out of their bonces on forbidden substances and blow their minds to rock ’n’ roll.

IT’S THEIR DUTY!

These things must be done and they must be done now! Too soon the jammy sandwich in the expensive sound system. Too soon the housework and the family saloon.

Remember the credo your fathers forgot.

TURN ON – TUNE IN – DROP OUT

And grow your hair big while you still have some to grow. And never trust anyone over thirty.

It was around three thirty when Gandhi’s Hairdryer opened the show and raised high the banner of rock.

It was big hair and tight leather trousers. It was Pigarse with his bulging crotch and Litany in a red rubber catsuit and four-inch stilettos. It was Ricky with his Stratocaster.

It was rock ’n’ roll.

A great sigh rose from the crowd as Litany walked onstage. Ten zillion male pheromones took to head-butting one another. A coachload of Paul McCartney fans thrust their knitting into their handbags, pulled their cardigans over their faces and fled.

And that was only the blokes. Ha ha ha ha ha …

Cheer and ogle went the boys in the black T-shirts and shorts. Rock ’n’ roll and rock went Gandhi’s Hairdryer.

It is virtually impossible to describe in mere words a great rock performance. But, as Norman once said, “It is only by attempting the impossible that we will achieve the absurd.”

So, let us pan gently across the stage with our belletristic camera, and, shunning the holophrastic, cry havoc and let slip the doggerels of war.

No. Let’s not.

Let’s go see how Soap is getting on.

Soap Distant and John Omally were down the front in the snake pit. That Holy of Holies before the stage, where only the Blessed possessing the sacred stage pass may bang their exalted heads and play their ethereal guitars.