“Creeping Things” ask for Bible rebrand to appear “less creepy”

Welcome to The Wycliffe Papers!

See below for details of a two-day workshop I’m running in September in London if you’re interested in getting experience writing a sitcom and working in a writers’ room.

But first, the headlines:

“The term ‘creeping things that creepeth upon the earth’ really makes us regular animals sound, well, creepy,” said a creature speaking for the Federation of Creatures that Move Along the Ground. “We recently changed our name from ACT - the Association of Creeping Things – to FCMAG (Federation of Creatures that Move Along the Ground) and we just want new Bible translations to reflect that change.”

“It’s okay for plants that creep up walls. I don’t think anyone has an issue with that,” said a rodent speaking on behalf of FCMAG. IWCCP (the Institute for Wall Climbers and Creeping Plants), however, has now said it would be placing its own use of the word “creeping” under review.

Bible translators are concerned that any change based on the preferences of the groups described could lead to unending demands for textual alterations. “MULU (Mammals Unhappy with the Label ‘Unclean’ have been lobbying to be destigmatised for years,” Andrew Kunsberger, textual consultant told The Wycliffe Papers. “Camels are floating the idea of being called “non-compliant ruminant-adjacent transport creatures that move along the ground”. And don’t get me started on the serpents who are seriously asking to be rebranded “subtle ground-level wisdom consultants”. That’s not happening, although they are oddly persuasive.”

Collective nouns have also come under scrutiny as a delegation of locusts resent being classified as a ‘plague’. “When two or three locusts gather together,” said one locust, “it is heavily implied that we’re bearers of the apocalyptic judgment of the Lord. We would much prefer to speak of our tendency towards ‘high-density arrival patterns’.”

FCMAG insists the campaign will continue to “advocate for all ground-facing species, whether they creep, crawl, scuttle or slither,” but that this is not about rewriting Scripture but “moving forward with dignity, preferably on several small legs, close to the soil.”

Share

And here’s one from the archives, since Bible translations are mentioned above:

Intense negotiations at Bible Translation Headquarters ran to hours following concerns over how the lunch order captured the range of preferences of the translation panel when it came to the sandwich options at Joe’s Diner, two blocks away.

Professor Lucille Rutherford argued that the list originally drafted could be open to misinterpretation by Janice, assistant to the office manager, who would be ‘popping out around noon to get some lunch.’

Dr Heinrich Feynmann insisted on ‘dynamic equivalence’ that would encapsulate his desire for ‘anything with pastrami’, and was prepared to accept a certain level of confusion over appropriate levels of mustard or mayonnaise.

Talks collapsed, however, when Janice dropped by just before lunch to inform the committee that the sandwich shop had closed two weeks earlier and that a selection of ‘sandwiches and bits’ had already been purchased by the office manager earlier that morning.

Want more jokes? You can access the entire archive AND join me on the monthly Zoom chat by becoming Loyal Lollard. That’s a paid subscriber. Our Zoom chat this month is on the second table of the Ten Commandments - and you will be able to catch with our replay on the first table and get bonus contents to articles I’m writing about each commandment in the Wycliffe Weekender.

You will also be helping keeping the lights on and the presses running here at The Wycliffe Papers.

What if you could spend two whole days in a real writers’ room? Sitting around generating ideas, pitching stories, breaking them into plots and shaping a pilot from the ground up?

Sounds like a dream? It could be a reality.

Join me and a small group of fellow writers in North London on 11th-12th September for From Premise to Pilot: an intensive, practical two-day workshop designed to get you thinking, pitching and writing like a proper TV comedy writers’ room.

Places are limited, so book now to secure yours:

Booking info

I’ve just taken the kids to school. In the car we listened to the beginning of the latest Stand-Up Theologian podcast episode which dropped this morning. I subjected my teenage children to this for two reasons. The first is so that I can hear that the episode is all present and correct, that it’s not weirdly loud or missing a theme tune, or whatever. The second reason is that I want them to hear what I’m up to and what I’m thinking about. In this case, it is Neil Postman’s classic book, Amusing Ourselves to Death published around forty years ago.

Knowing what my parents were up to is something I enjoyed finding out about in my own childhood, living on a farm. I was interested to find out how my parents made a living and finding out what mattered to them. It was hard to avoid finding this out since I would eat three meals a day with my parents during the school holidays. Being farmers, they only went outside to work. They were almost never away. How could they be? There were a hundred cows to milk twice a day.

Meals took place in the kitchen. There wasn’t a television in the corner, although there was a radio which played Radio 2 in the mornings. At lunchtime, we talked and did the crossword. This, in turn, threw up further topics for conversation. It might also send us diving into dictionaries or encyclopaedias. In fact, my parents had the complete set of Encyclopædia Britannica, for which I am very grateful. I’m not sure I used them much, but it showed me they considered knowledge to be important.

Only later in life do you realise how costly things from your childhood must have been. Books were expensive. In fact, there was a cartel rigging the prices known as the New Book Agreement in which retailers were punished for selling books below the price dicated by publishers. The cost of a set of encyclopaedias, however, was on another level.

My parents also gave me the gift of time, which could always have been spent in other ways, possibly making more money. I am literally eternally grateful for this childhood. With three older sisters, I happily spent a lot of time on my own and listening to audiobooks and sitcoms I’d recorded off the television with a cassette recorder (seriously). But I never felt disconnected or isolated. I felt part of a family, albeit the latest arrival. The show had started without me. Maybe that is why I’m happy to be a sitcom writer. In sitcoms, the big story has already started and we’re watching the middle.

I said this to Ben Elton on the one occasion that I met him…

Read the rest over at The Situation Room:

You made it all the way to the end?! Impressive. Thanks for reading The Wycliffe Papers!