Abigail Doggett: Cosmic Vanity: What's with wanting to be worshipped

Peter Cook (‘PC’): I used to be an angel you know, up in heaven.

Dudley Moore (‘DM’): Oh yea. You used to be God’s favourite didn’t you.

PC: That’s right. I love Lucifer it was in those days.

DM: What was it like up in heaven?

PC: Very nice really. We used to sit round all day and adore Him. Believe me He was adorable. Just about the most adorable thing you ever did see.

DM: Well, what went wrong then?

PC: I’ll show you. Here we are, give me a leg up would you.

PC: I’m God. This is my throne see. [Imagine Peter Cook sitting cross legged on a post box.] All around are the cherubim, seraphim, continually crying holy, holy, holy. The angels, archangels, that sort of thing. Now, you be me, Lucifer. The loveliest angel of them all.

DM: What do I do?

PC: Well, sort of dance around, praising me mainly.

DM: What sort of things do I say?

PC: Anything that comes into your head that’s nice. How beautiful I am, how handsome I am, how wise, that sort of thing. Come on, start dancing.

[Cue jazz music. Dudley Moore commences an awkward tap shuffle round the post box.]

DM: You’re wise, you’re beautiful, you’re handsome.

PC: Thank you very much.

DM: The universe – what a wonderful idea. Take my hat of to you.

PC: Thank you.

DM: Trees – terrific. Water, another good one.

PC: That was a good one.

DM: Sex, top marks.

PC: Now, make it more personal. A bit more fulsome please. Come on.

DM: The immortal, the invisible. You’re handsome, you’re glorious.

PC: Thank you.

DM: You’re the most beautiful person in the world. ‘Ere, I’m getting a bit bored of this. Can’t we change places?

PC: That’s precisely what I said.1

Worship is boring. It’s time consuming. It’s the end of reason. It’s conformity in the extreme and it brooks no dissenting opinion. I think that there is a very real ‘turn off factor’. A switch within us that switches firmly ‘off’, at the very mention of the word worship. A sinking feeling of interminable dullness. This is the first objection to worship….. But there is more…