To you dear reader I, The-Cath-Pulag-Formerly-Known-As-The-Profit-Of-The-High-Priestess-Spiritual-Descendent-Of-All-Those-Pulags-Who-Have-Gone-Before-Me-And-Spiritual-Ancestor-Of-All-Those-Pulags-Who-Are-To-Come-After-Me, extend my most hearty greetings!

You will have read that we sisters are all members of the order and you will no doubt be wondering what it is all about. Well . . .

In AB (anno banana) 1, the prophet Nanaba ate some mushrooms in India and had it revealed unto him that the only thing Jesus got right was that figs are evil and that the true manifestation of God is that of the Divine Banana. The good news has spread over the centuries and today the order has more members than ever before. They are :

The Nananananana . . . (+ infinate nas) . . . nanaba.
The Cath-Pulag (to give my shortened name).
The Abgollah.
The Verpert.
The Zed Lepplin.
The Juanita Chocolita.
The Mercant Of Venice
Bu.

(Important members all have 'the' in front of their titles).

What are the tenants of our faith?

That the divine Banana created all things but that evil comes in the form of THE FIGS!!! The current incarnation of the Great Fig is Mohammed Al-Fayed.

However in 50 year time Busta Rhymes will bear the chosen one who will lead the faithful to fight the figs on giant sloths with puce forget-me-nots (as proficied in the 54th book of Reebok, page 22). We shall defeat them and the figs, cauliflours, marrows and other cursed foodstuffs will be sent the pit of eternal diahorrea. The bananas, potatos, carrots and kumquats will all go to the paradise of Bananarama.

Such dear reader, is our order. If you wish to join you must get a name in religion (it will be divinely inspired - make it silly!) and say 'yea I am a banana'. Sign the guestbook and tell us all about it!

The Lesser Gods

Dear reader, though we worship the Divine Banana above all others for his excellence and banananess, there are certain other gods whom we worship most reverently. Here is a list of all those lesser deities who have thus far been made up revealed unto us.

Gongilly : Worship him oh ye people for he is the august god of pasta, the sustainer of students, the light of our stomachs endarkened by poverty.

Jonjilly: His most great and worthy consort, the goddess of pasta sauces and parmesan cheese. Without her he is but nothing.

Sucrosia: Oh ye thirsty! Worship the blessed Sucrosia, she is the goddess of lemonade. Worship her for her fruits are refreshing.

Squeeble the Lactic: Squeeble the Lactic, who takes the form of a small pink mouse, is most glorified and honoured for she is the goddess of cheese. The hymns devoted to her are many [I'm sure], for example:
Squeeble the Lactic, give me cheese
And I will do whatever you please.
Most excellent is she!

Mark Underwood : The most revered god of atheists! Glory be to him.

Ell : Yes I, The humble Ell, as well as being the Cath Pulag etc, am the goddess of rulers and, as of last year upon promotion, of pencil sharpeners too!!

Ponky : He that takes the form of a monkey with an udder is his superlativeness the god of ice cream! Worship him for he giveth us pleasure and the Divine Banana has said (in the 47th book of Reebok) that that the eating of ice cream is a holy act and will earn you merit in Bananarama.

Ziggy : The God of funniness and of the desecration of maths books! He was revealed unto the Cath Pulag and the Nanaba when they were but fourteen, doing homework during games when sickness prevented them from nearly dying under torture enjoying their sports. Their maths text book was filled with lies and ignorance, Ziggy appeared unto them and said 'go my children, and desecrate all maths books for their folly is offensive to me'. It was done and Ziggy was mightily pleased. All who desecrate maths books will earn his approval and the divine Banana's too.

Tobias : Great is he indeed for he is the god of central heating! Who warms towels and keeps us from freezing when we come out of the shower!!

PaZoob : The God of Bread.

MaZoob : His wife, the almighty goddess of toasters. The mystical union of these two mighty deities creates the mightiest of the lesser gods:

Zoob The Magnificent! : Eternally old and yet eternally reborn!!! Zoob the Magnificent is great and glorious and mighty etc etc. He who sustains the students and the drunk and tired at two in the morning! Zoob the Magnificent who upholds and nourishes! Praise him praise him for as long as ye have breath!!

Here is a prayer to MaZoob:

Hail MaZoob, full of crumbs.
PaZoob is with thee.
Blessed art thou among kitchen utensils.
And blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Zoob The Magnificent.
Holy MaZoob, mother of Zoob the Magnificent, provide for us students now
And after the hour of our graduation. Amen.

Mathilda: The Goddess of Knives. She is one of Pazoobs whores. Their union creates:

Matzoob: The God of Sandwiches.

Yonville Py Qonnqog: The most glorious and beauitful Goddess of Red Telephone Boxes. Honour be unto her!

Purglemice: The most awesome and terrible God of Exams. Approach him with fear and trembling.

Timtimablee (pronounced in fearsome German / Spanish voice): The God of loudspeakers.

David: God of Drawing Pins.

Pyoog: Androgynous deity of labelless clothing, who is delighted by brutal sacrifices of trendies.

Flervly: God of biscuits.

Alan: We're not quite sure what he is god of but praise and worship him anyway!!!

Demons

Fear the evil powers of the following entities and the terrible things the stand for!

Nibblewick: Romantic Comedies.

Shiz: Shops That Close Inconveniently Early.

Claude: Forgetting important things when you're just about to do them.

Isobar: Deceptive weather forecasts.

Filibeg: Fickleness.

Algerbert: Skippy CDs.

Zim Zimmer Zim Zim Zim: Writing things down, then not being able to read your own handwriting. (He was originally the demon of something else, which I [Zed] noted down, but when I came to type it, I couldn't make out my own words. Doubtless, the beast himself was responsible for foul deed.)

Our Saints

Dear reader, herein is a list of those persons whom we have seen fit to canonise because of their great services to mankind. Read of them, dear reader, and strive ever to follow their example that you to may go to Bananarama.

Note : Some persons have never been members of the Order but we feel their example is such that they deserve to be absolved of this and received posthumously.

Pope Joan: A woman who according to legend became pope. When she had a child, she was killed as a heretic. The Vatican have mysteriously 'lost' records of the years she was supposed to have ruled!

Alice Cooper: Really cool rock star, who sings, "I'm 18!" at the age of 52 and beats up pensioners on stage.

Ludwig II: The last king of Bavaria. He was insane and had a penchant for building fairy tale castles on mountain tops (used as models for Disney's) and an obsession with Wagner, which even Wagner thought OTT.

Elvis: Madman from the Deep South. He became a singer or something.

Ralph John Brian Dorian Ian Ignatious Russel: My dog.

The Queen Of Hearts: No, not the woman who dated the son of The Great Fig before her sad death but the playing card who cried 'OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!'

William Gorgas: Random guy we got from a biographical dictionary.

St Simon Stylites: I believe I am correct in saying that he lived on top of a pillar and denounced people.

Erik Sati: Eccentric French composer who never married but collected umbrellas and cats instead.

Mr Weeks: Had the honour of being the head-teacher of The Nanaba and The Cath-Pulag and made them laugh during play rehearsals by acting it all out himself.

Hans Rott: A talented composer, who may have influenced Mahler, who went mad in a railway carriage, pulled a gun on a stranger and said Brahms had filled the train with dynamite. He died tragically young.

Van Gogh: Painter who painted pretty flowers, pastoral idylls and cut off his ear in a fit of madness.

Baudilaire: Manic depressive French poet who wrote some of the most beautiful verse in the French language as well as some delightful odes to his pussy cats.

Alkan: Another eccentric French composer who lived with his illegitimate son and died when a bookcase fell on him.

Yaa Ashantiwaa: The Queen mother of The Ashantis of modern Ghana who led a rebellion against the British last century.

Hester Stanhope: Slept her way across North Africa.

Felicity Mason: Another highly sexed eccentric.

Mata Hari: Infamous WW1 spy who used her sensuality to its best advantage in rooting out secrets.

Indiana Jones: Well, every hagiography has some fictitious characters!

Harold III Sigurdsson: Norwegian king of England and possessor of a very silly name.

Koko the gorilla: Gorilla who can communicate in sign language.

Bubbles: Chimp who escaped from the clutches of the Fig Michael Jackson.

Brian Molko: I like Placebo, ok!

Sid Vicious: Lead singer of the Sex Pistols. Had really bad taste in women. Why didn't he go for Zed instead? (Disregard the fact that she hadn't been born at the time of his demise.)

Caligula: Roman Emperor who made his horse a senator and was a very paranoid neurotic man with a phenomenal sexual appetite.

The Spark: Why can't canonize a website filled with toilet humour?

Ezekiel: Insane prophet who wrote about magic wristbands.

Miro: Zed's favourite painter, since she was less than a year old.

Rasputin: Mad terribly oversexed Russian Monk who managed to control the Tsarovich's haemophilia and survived being poisoned with cyanide among other things.

Lola Ferrari: Had absolutely enormous breasts on Eurotrash. However, she had a very sad life, so we decided to make her a saint. I hope her spirit is honoured.

Kitty: The cat my adoptive human parents had when they first married.

Fergus: My parents' first West Highland Terrier. He was, in my brother's words, a little bugger. He was always raiding the dustbin.

Angus: Our last Westie. He was blind and pretty well deaf and ill for most of his life, but he was a very dear and brave little dog.

Hamish: A Cairn Terrier that my grandmother had.

Muffy: A tortoise shell cat my grandmother had. She was very sweet and didn't mind when I sat down on her once.

Sweep: Our black cat who was incredibly naughty but very purry and died in an act of mischief typical of him.

Little Viv: My ginger pussy cat. He used to sit on the newspapers and mew for all the world as if he was talking.

Little Ben: Senior dog of our household.

Little Dudley: A small monochrome cat with a raucous mew and round eyes.

Hercules: Our tortoise, master escapologist.

Molly: Our new cat who is a very grey, very stripy tabby. She is most naughty and has succeeded is breaking many glass bauballs off the xmas tree of 2001.

Jacques Vaché: Influence of André Breton, the founder of surrealism. Vaché's ambition was to join a pointless Chinese secret society in Australia.

Guido Orefice: The main character off "Life Is Beautiful", one of our collective favourite films.

All of Spinal Tap, including all 47 drummers they got through: They need no explanation.

Georgina Weldon: Lunapathic Victorian who sued everyone.

James Unwin's sofa: The Cath Pulag was spending the night at his place one time and his sofa was rare in that it was long enough to accommodate her body and was one of the comfiest she had ever slept on. For its virtues it now has a place in Bananarama.

Central Station : Very Good Brazilian film Zed and the Cath Pulag love.

Kaspar Hauser (as we imagine him) : Object of Werner Herzog's great film 'Every Man for Himself and God Against All' (Which as my brother pointed out is a much better title than the usual English one of 'The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser). He was sweet and the historical accounts confirm this.

Snaily: Although Zed owned about 200 fish over the course of her life, she, unlike Ell, is not going to subject you to all their names. (Mostly because most of them didn't have names.) However, Snaily is in a class of his own, due to living for at least five years as an adult (most fish she owned didn't manage five days), his ability to swim upsidedown, eating snails, staying behind a rock for a year and two months, and dying while Zed was away on holiday and her brother was feeding him.

Prohibitions

Brethren, though we are a most tolerant and benign faith, yet it is incumbent upon me to list certain mortal and unforgivable sins which ye commit at the cost of a place in Bananarama itself and earning a place in the pit of eternal diahorea.

In the 25th Book of Reebok it is written : "'Thou shalt not mow grass, for it is a ridiculous pass time and annoys me' Thus spake the divine Banana".

In the 275th book of Reebok (right at the very end) it is written "The four letter word that is LOVE is most displeasing to mine ears and shall not be written in the holie parchment that is a guestbook. They that transgress this rule shall be made to suffer by the great computer that shall keep score at the end of time. This great computer shall not be powered as mortal computers be, but by the power of the incorruptible holiness of Bananadom, strengthened by the Divine Banana."

[Of note this was the subject of a theological debate in Zed's guestbook some time ago].

And finally . . .

An important fact has been revealed unto us oh brethren! It has been proven by scientists that we unworthy human beings/aliens share 40% of our genetic material with bananas!! This shows how gracious the divine Banana has been in sharing so much of himself with us and making we mortals worthy of attaining Bananarama!!