Koos Kombuis

Okay; so Hugh Hefner dies and goes to Heaven, where St Peter invites him over for a dinner party at God’s place. God, who’s a bit tiddly, leads Hugh out onto the patio where the devil, Heineken in hand, is tending the braai.

The hot topic of the evening, causing shock and revulsion in the Virgin Mary, St Paul, St Peter and the assembled disciples, is the latest atrocity on earth.

‘”The buggers…!” the Devil exclaimed…”as if destroying the rain forests wasn’t enough. As if the religious intolerance and suicide bombings weren’t enough. They’ve had to go and bring the Bee Gees back together again.”’

And what about God’s personal diary? It seems that when he had the chance to leave the Infamous Beverly Hills prison, he was in such a hurry he left his journal behind, where it was found and handed to St Paul who – being a lawyer – wasted no time in reading it.

Paul, aka St Scumbag, looks for a way to profit from the revelation of the deity’s innermost secrets, and eventually decides to approach the most powerful man in the world, USA president Arnold Schwarzenegger.

‘”It is not really in my best interest to reveal to you the contents of the diary. For one thing, it will discredit a lot of my previous work. It will make the Bible look silly, and, as you know, I had quite a hand in writing the Bible…

“I will do that, if the price is right.

“This is an offer you cannot refuse. Look at it this way; this is one way of getting back at the Vatican for appointing all those faggot priests in your country”’.

Alas for Paul: little does he realize Prez Arnie is hand in glove with Pope John Paul Young IV: the Pope is the chairman of a highly secret world-controlling society, The Illuminati, of which Schwarzenegger and his British counterpart Sir Bob Geldof are senior members – along with Chuck Norris.

After mislaying his private journal, instead of starting a new one God get with the times and starts his own blog: this book does not record the number of hits he received, but the comments are negligible.

No wonder he gives up after only three entries and a mere five comments – albeit it they are from luminaries like Oprah, Jeffrey Archer, Salman Rushdie, Osama bin Laden and John Lennon [??!!??]

Koos Kombuis’s – sorry – God’s diaries had me laughing out loud: the 2008 compendium contains the original The Secret Diary of God, circa 2003 – ‘a computer-generated numeric interpretation, something along the lines of The Bible Code, of an ancient manuscript, the 1964 Potchefstroom telephone directory’ – but wait, there’s more.

In addition, we are given an update, based on the results of a numeric decoding programme when applied to the latest telephone directory for Tlokwe [aka Potchefstroom], which ‘contained not only almost the entire original text… it also contained new material.’

Kombuis – Mean God – fans will already be familiar with the perplexing sacred writings of the original Diary: who amongst us has not read his justification for the eradication of the dinosaurs, his promotion of mankind, and the teacher’s favourites he made of the Jewish Race and wondered…

This updated edition will answer some of these questions, explore the geography of spiritual politics, and enable us to feel closer to god – not as an all-powerful entity, but a disillusioned psyche.

An absurd, clever, funny series of witty and irreverent Biblical pastiches which manage to offend all but at the same time insult none. But be warned: this is not a work for any who suffer from one or more of the following condition: bigotry, humourlessness, fundamentalism, stupidity or willful ignorance.

For everyone else, it is a delicious and delightful satire not only on the Judeo-Christian-Muslim Bible but also a tale that gently ridicules all organized religions and their ideas of Godhead.

But when all is said and done. God is saddled with just the single heir – begotten by Immaculate Conception no less – Jesus Christ; a nice enough chap but an irritating idealist in addition to being a phobic neurotic. Father and son do not see eye to eye and when JC arrives on earth for the second coming; the first thing he tells everyone is that God is Dead.

Before he can elaborate he is taken out by a US sniper bullet, but it is all part of an ingenious plot on his dad’s part: God isn’t dead at all, he just wants people to believe he is so he can enjoy his retirement in peace.

With wonderful, unselfconscious prose, this is the funniest book I have ever read by a South African and reinforces my opinion that local writers are world-class, even if their readership is not worldwide.… (mere)