ERIK wandered the world, his creation, and was mispleased. Where was the degeneracy, the vilest examples of man perverse and abhorrent behaviour; the worst excesses of a corrupt soul; where were the game shows, soap operas, talent contest and other barbarisms that prey on the mind? All was quiet and peaceful. nothing stirred; in fact bugger all was happening.

“HERBERT”, he cried, “HERBERT my loyal follower, what is happening?”

“One minute lord while I get this compiled.” Said the HERBERT

“Now HERBERT”

“It’s nearly there”

“NOW”

When the stars stopped shaking a small figure could be seen brushing the dust off a small box topped with a round screen. “Now he’s gone and crashed it; do you know how long it took to get that debugged, and now HE goes and crashes it!”

“Herbert what is this? Where is the debauchery, lust, parties and garlic bread? All I can see is men huddled over this small box whimpering. And who are those crudely formed, lazy, ugly men over there?”

“They are outcast lord, dosers.”

“And what is going on?”

“Well lord, you remember you gave Albert the builder those plans for Sodem and Gommorah to be your new places of worship. Albert being Albert lost them, and his caftan off his back on the 3.14 from Babylon to a smarmy bugger called Bill Fence.

“and did this Bill Fence build them?”

“Well more like, improved them. He built Gommorah, but then he improved the plans.”

“And how do you improve my plans?”

“By doing it in something other than crayon?”

“SILENCE. WHAT DID HE DO?”

“Well this Bill thought that no one would ever want anything called Sodem, so he changed the design and called it modem, and we’ve been using them ever since, especially since the women left, can’t use technology them. Give them a simple cricket ball and ask them to throw it, a simple task, but see what happens, probably not even up to fetching the ball let alone a stick. Still at least we let them cook for us to make them seem useful.”

“HERBERT, this pleases me not. Return to what remains of your hovel and build an ark, for I am to destroy mankind, and begin again. All the earth will be peopled with your descendants so that no-one will blame me but you. Make this ark big enough for your family, and all the animals which browse, fish that fly, birds that swim, and the little cute bunny wabbits .” [ed. it seems from this remark that ERIC in fact had help creating the animals as he has no idea what they do]

HERBERT returned to his hovel, now looking like the components for a do it yourself bonfire, and pondered; how was he going to build and ark when he had spent all his money on surgery on his sheep to increase their breeding potential. He should never have listened to that sales man going on about doubling the size of his ram. More importantly, he needed plans. So he joined the alt.build-an-ark news group, and the members of this went to the libraries and searched through the seedy rooms full of information, and gradually the plans and then the ark took shape. Luckily ERIC had decided to wait until the ark was finished before messing about with the weather, as it took several years to build, Albert the builder having borrowed HERBERT’s hammer and not returning it. (In alternative universes this was the reason for 2 religious wars, one marriage, 3 violent deaths involving lawnmowers, and an unseemly growth the shape of Gibraltar appearing on Albert’s left knee, but none of this matters, currently)

When the ark was finished ERIK let loose his wrath, and the rains fell and the water rose: for 39 days it rained and the waters rose, until the only thing visible on the water was the ark afloat. And the ark was surrounded by water, and the only dry thing in sight, so they named it Yorkshire, which means the land bereft of water.

Aboard the Yorkshire were HERBERT and Albert, And HERBERT’s sons Spam, Jam and Van, and Spam’s wife Anette, and Jam’s wife, and all of their adorable snotty nosed brats. Also on board could be found 2 of every species under the sun, but this was causing problems, as Spam reported to HERBERT.

“Dad, we’re running out of food; the baby grazers are eating too much.”

“You mean the new browsers are taking mega bites; well they’ll just have to go.” And go they did, and lamb became popular.

As the Yorkshire floated randomly around the weather grew colder, and the animals could be seen to shiver. Anette took pity on one and placed her cloak around it. And thus was born the legend of Anette’s cape browser.

As time floated by, carrying the detritus of human existence the rains died away but the waters didn’t recede. HERBERT became concerned and pleaded with ERIC to help them, but ERIC had been summoned for improper use of a hosepipe during the mysterious drought that had swept Olympus.

So HERBERT sent out a messenger, a raven to search for land but it never came back. So HERBERT sent out a homing pigeon which never left but circled the ark bleating. So HERBERT sent out a dove, and after 3 days the dove returned with a shoe made from reeds. As HERBERT held the shoe the waters begin to recede and all were happy and soon on very soggy land.

But ERIK came back to find the whole system reed booted, and that mankind had fallen into their evil ways again. Being a much wiser God, and also being bound over, ERIK forgave them, and increased their lifespan a thousand times. But as a reminder he afflicted them with old age, deafness and a failing memory for things like dates. And this he called the ear 2000 problem.

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