Public health warning for Douglas on 17th April

While we were in Douglas yesterday for a spot of retail therapy a Care in the Community case shuffled up and gave me a leaflet.
Fair enough, I thought, they need a hobby and some pin money, so they might as well get it handing out flyers for sunbed shops and closing down sales. Then I looked at it and laughed out loud.
Yes, the product was dodgy, and yes, the trader is fast going out of business, but it wasn’t quite what I expected.
Ladies and Gentlemen, time for another of the Deluded Herd’s annual get-togethers. Our chums at Living Hell, Port St. Mary’s most infamous madhouse, are having an Easter event at the Villa Marina.
UNITE@easter not only features the deranged ramblings of one of Ulster’s many redundant preachers (AKA ‘Jonathan Stansfield, Lead Pastor’), but also (cue drum roll)…..the UNITE Worship Band!!!!
Actually, I was unavoidably detained in locked rooms and forced to hear these prize herberts once or twice, and they are unforgettable (unfortunately). Imagine that freak show of failed contestants they feature on the final of the X Factor, led in tuneless song by a demented harpie who accidentally took a shedload of magic mushrooms and thinks she’s being rogered senseless by her Magic Invisible Friend and you won’t be far off.
Priceless.
The flyer is a bit vague, and some of the copy is even accidentally regurgitated from their New Year bash, so not sure what else to warn you to avoid on April 17th between noon and midnight. Witches may well be accused and burnt for all we know, small kids and folks in wheelchairs could be trampled underfoot when pitchforks are wielded and torches lit by a howling mob.
I doubt if there’ll be any chocolate bunnies though, not even Fairtrade ones, because rednecks don’t like that kind of pagan idolatry, and being End-Timers who eagerly await the Rapture they’re not about to help anyone in the developing world unless the kickback is 100 times bigger than the investment of other gullible people’s money.
Of course, this is also happening just across the road from their Broadway rivals, so an all out turf war for the day between our local evangelical Crips and Bloods could be on the cards. Punishment bible beatings, spray-and-pray random leafleting, drive by sermons…. who knows what else.
Just stay out of the area between around noon and midnight next Sunday would be my advice.