Culture test?

Malcolm subscribes to the BBC Newsnight email. This means that, each evening, he gets a heads-up on the main items for the 10.30pm broadcast.

It usually comes with a funny. Here's today's

A burglar breaks into a house and as he moves from room to room he is terrified when he hears a voice which says:

"Jesus is watching you."

Heart pounding he looks around and sees nothing.

He gets back to work, disconnecting the DVD player when the voice calls out again:

"Jesus is watching you."

He switches on his flashlight and in the corner of the room he sees a parrot.

"Did you say that?"

"Yes," replies the parrot. "I'm just trying to warn you."

The burglar relaxes.

"Yeah, thanks. You got a name, parrot?"

"I'm Moses," the parrot replies.

The burglar laughs.

"What kind of idiots would name their parrot Moses?" he scoffs.

The parrot squawks "The same kind who would name their rottweiler Jesus."

Now, Malcolm found that funny. It made him laugh aloud.

A few moments later he realised this was as much of a shibboleth as Norman Tebbit's "cricket test" (frequently failed north of Hadrian's Wall).

So Malcolm nows wonders whether anyone, any intolerant religious bigot, chooses to voice an objection to the Beeb's sense of humour. He guesses not. On the contrary, he suspects the same joke may have emerged (or soon will do) from many pulpits. Sphere: Related Content