When it comes to selling, nothing beats that other religion: football

Published on Thursday 8 June 2006 01:17

IT'S not even day one, and already my World Cup runneth over.

"It's a lot more important than that," rasped the taxi driver.

At a mercantile level, this is indisputable. Colossal sums of money are whizzing electronically around the globe today in cash tribute to the world's only universal religion: football. It can sell everything from plasma TVs to airline tickets. Which is, as I discovered on Monday, rather more than can be said for Christianity.

At the prime 8-9pm slot, Channel 4 screened a documentary entitled God's Next Army, which followed the lives of students at Patrick Henry College, Washington. The college was founded only four years ago, and intends to rival traditional Ivy League colleges such as Harvard and Yale in political influence. The salient difference being that Patrick Henry College is aggressively Christian. Their "mission" is to infiltrate US government at the highest level. The entire curriculum is taught from a biblical standpoint - including science. Creationism rules. Hence, the biological science professor explained Earth's strata as a result of the Flood, as per Genesis, and not due to millions of years of accumulated geology.

THE programme was fascinating and worrying in equal measure - like spying on a Taleban training cell, but without the armaments. Eighty per cent of the students were home-schooled by ultra-religious-right parents who would not entrust their moral and academic development to the state system. College was their first real taste of "the outside world", albeit with identical controls; so they lined up - in solemn, compulsory silence - to sign a pledge that they would abstain not only from the sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll trio which has fuelled further education in most western countries for the last 40 years, but also from tobacco, profanity and pornography.

They displayed both ruthlessness and naivety. A class trip to Washington was to lobby against any compensation for asbestosis sufferers. God, presumably, will provide. "My goal is to right the heartbeat of America," 18-year-old Samantha told the camera. Engrossing and chilling as I found this (being the daughter of an Evangelical Presbyterian) what was almost as intriguing was the absolute silence from advertisers. Not a single "buy me" ad was screened during the 50-minute running time; only a few Channel 4 programme trailers.

I know they will be praying for me at Patrick Henry College when I conclude that Jesus can't sell pizza. Loaves and fishes, perhaps, but it takes football to shift detergent, beer and automobiles. Perhaps that's as it should be.

AND on the subject of how things should be - could I make a plea for the return of icy politeness? I had a run-in with British Midland over luggage allowance last week. The Edinburgh check-in clerk announced that "no airline in the world accepts hold baggage weighing over 23 pounds". I suggested she was mistaken.

"I have travelled all over the world," she told me.

"I have checked in exactly this amount of luggage with BMI before," I countered - as there seemed no reason to discuss her holidays.

"So you've got away with it before. But you won't today," she replied nastily. The penalty was 70, and I handed over my credit card, which she told me had jammed her machine. "Go over there and pay," she gestured; but we had already wasted ten minutes, there was a queue at the ticket desk and the gate closure time loomed. So I went upstairs and offered a cheque to the gate clerk. "I don't see why I should take this. You should go where you're told," she barked.

She offered no receipt, and I was stopped as I tried to board. "Your excess luggage receipt seems to be missing, madam," this young man said with a smile. What he really meant was "Gotcha!" (though he hadn't), but his phrasing was perfect. Jane Austen, instead of Irvine Welsh. The art of the polite insult is sadly underrated.