Friday 19 February 2010

Celebrating Ash Wednesday

The social committee of a church in Uganda has organised a new line in entertainment. Social Affairs Secretary Mrs Trellis, of Idi Amin Street, Kampala, said:

We have never had such a popular response to one of our socials. We charged a modest fee at the door, so that we can carry on getting new material. We can go from strength to strength, with rippling muscles and pointing ahead firmly.

It is a unique line of Christian entertainment: gay porn that attracted some 300 people, as many as could fit into the room without getting the film on the back of their heads and annoying everyone else.

The first film was Dennis Does Kampala, in which a local man realises he can impregnate half of the city before the police gets to him. The second film was Gobble His Lolly, in which a man hooked on ice creams on a stick finds his vocation with an ice cream salesman and prefers his stick to his lollies.

Ugandans not used to this sort of thing were said to have left the screening full of conversation about techniques and one or two might have been traumatised. "I had no idea," said Billy, "but I have now." Bobby said, "I always thought Saturn Uranus were far out in our galaxy, not here in Kampala."

Mrs Trellis said:

We are showing these films for Lent, as a way of people self-sacrificing their sensitivities. Next week we will meditate and contemplate on a film about immigrants, Back Door for Nigerians: Coming in Uganda.

Pastor Martin Ssempa was present and even commentated through the screening, and then accused an unknown Mr Obama of America for wanting to sell him and other Ugandans this material, when Mrs Trellis can obtain it far more cheaply and easily. Pastor Ssempa said it would likely increase his notoriety further and increase the size of his congregation, although he admitted that 'congregation' might be a euphemism.

Meanwhile, the national television service in Uganda understood the meaning of Ash Wednesday literally, rather like some do the Bible. On NTV Uganda, an appropriately named Pastor Solomon Male said the Bible states that gay people who do not change should be killed and the audience applauded.

Christianity is said to be expanding in Uganda at present. No wonder, with this sort of entertainment on offer. Kilroy, never mind the explicitly religious The Big Questions, never managed this, and certainly the Mothers' Union has not put on such a film show for its Lenten reflections (well, not yet).

2 comments:

Erika Baker said...

If I hadn't read this somewhere else before I would have thought it was one of your brilliant satires.

Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) said...

Sometimes I just become the equivalent of a local newspaper reporter just looking up someone else's work.