Check-out conspiracy theories (From The Northern Echo)

Check-out conspiracy theories

1:18pm Tuesday 9th August 2011 in Peter Mullen By Peter Mullen

MY wife does the serious stuff but I do all the household, non-complicated shopping here in the City of London.

Bread and butter, chucky eggs, bacon, packets of mince and the quotidian requirement of plonk.

So, over the years, I have got to know all the lads and lasses in the local Tesco and I reckon them my best mates.

Last Saturday, I went across to the store and bought a few things, delighted to be served by a young Pakistani lad who asked if I’d been watching the cricket series between England and India.

Well, of course, I had. My wife and I had been glued to the telly, ball without end.

Then he said something a bit weird: “Are you a Christian?”

“Yes, well, I try to be. I am after all rector of that big church just across the road!”

He said: “I am Muslim. This is Ramadan.

Christians don’t observe Ramadan.”

“No we observe something called Lent, which is a fast rather like Ramadan – but, unfortunately, rather longer.”

He asked me about Lent and I told him about my pathetic-heroic annual tribulation of giving up the booze for six weeks.

“Oh,” he said, “you should not drink at all.

The Prophet says it dulls your mind.”

I said: “Well, it looks as if the Prophet is no great disciple of Inspector Morse, who always maintained that a couple of jars aided his powers of deduction.”

I went on to say that I thought it pretty stupid to make a habit of getting out of it on booze but that, well, to be honest and as a writer, I often find that if the words don’t flow, a glass and a half can sometimes help.

My young Muslim friend was appalled: “You should not drink – not anything, never.”

Nevertheless, he said he thought Christians and Muslims should try to get on together.

I vigorously agreed but I said: “What about the persecution of Christians in Muslim lands? If I was seen in the street in Saudi Arabia wearing this crucifix, they would throw me into jail. And churches are regularly burned down in Pakistan. I told him I knew this because my friend Bishop Michael Nazir Ali, himself a Pakistani, had confirmed it.

My Tesco mate said: “No it is not the Muslims in Pakistan who are burning down the churches. The Americans are doing this and blaming the Muslims for it.”

I asked him if could really believe that to be true. He said: “Oh yes, and the Americans destroyed the twin towers on 9/11 and blamed the Muslims. There were no American or Jewish casualties in those bombings. All the victims were Muslims. The planes were not flown by al-Qaida but by the Americans.”

I said: “Well, my friend, that’s very interesting.

But I also know an insane woman not a million miles from here who thinks that the Duke of Edinburgh was responsible for the death of Princess Diana.”

“Yes,” he said, “it was Prince Philip who arranged her death.”

I thought it best not to get into a dispute.

And I’ve always liked this lad. We’ve had such great conversations about cricket. I didn’t want to upset him.

So I thanked my Christian God for the fact that it was not Lent, bought a bottle of cheap claret and (with the greatest of respect for Ramadan) a packet of pork chops and went home for a lie down.

Do we, perhaps, have a duty to tolerate this most stupid madness? I do know that the great St Augustine said we have no such responsibility.