Damp squib

More evidence yesterday that the evangelical lunatic fringe is in recession.
I’ve blogged once or twice on the desperate efforts of the Scripture Union to recruit smaller and smaller kids, and how despite Education Department support they’re failing. ‘Take the Smarties and Run’ – must be the most popular game in some junior school playgrounds these days.
Now see http://www.manx.net/default.asp?id=18&articleid=11214 , and a near relative at http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=28288&area and discover that even the most barefaced bible-blaggers this island can churn out are losing. Also, nice to see them admit what we’ve always known, that the numbers attending their annual hyped-to-hell-and-back ‘yoof fest’ are minimal.
Once the usual visitors (three or four extended families from a part of England best known to medical experts for extensive inbreeding) are detached we’re left with….....what exactly? Half a dozen preachers trying to outshout each other, any kids too young to stay home in case someone from the DHSS peeks through the window, recognises them as the same kids they’ve already counted as some other godbotherer’s and cuts the whole congregation’s benefits…....and that would be about it.
Think about this – if expecting up to 100 is their biggest year yet, what must the real figures have been in previous years? Also bear in mind, after unfortunate incidents in early years which only went unreported due to favours being called in, the organisers don’t let local media on site to look around or take photos. Thus all reports and pictures are from the organisers themselves.
For off-island readers, Firestarter is run by some dubious characters from the island’s most notorious evangelical cult, with much of the cost underwritten by even more dodgy folk. This year they’re back in their old venue – a campsite set up with grants from government and churches which was meant to cater for a fictitious Christian tourist trade.
Last year the whole freak show moved to St. Johns, heartland of the local BNP and godbothering rednecks. Not sure why – could have been part of a concerted effort by the island’s most notorious faith-biased parasites to establish the site of the Tynwald Ceremony as ‘Christian’, though more likely because there was a government grant going begging or the usual campsite actually expected them to pay all the gas and electricity bills they ran up.
Might have been because the white-flighters who hang out at the golf club bar next door complained when howling godbotherers drowned out their vacuous drunken rants. Might have just been because Ramsey’s RNLI volunteers point blank refused to pull any more dozy Christians out of the water, where they had a tendency to go paddling late at night (while blissed out after marathon prayer-fests) then get right out of their depth.
Anyway, they’re back up here. Sadly I have a previous appointment in a sunnier clime, so when the inevitable happens and the golfers and godbotherers bump into each other again I won’t be there to see which sad act comes out on top.
Oh, and you might want to take a note of the sponsors too. There’s really no excuse for this nonsense, so no respectable business would go near it.