Like many of you, I suspect, I have been wondering who Jesus Christ would have liked least, Africans or homosexuals. Most of the available evidence suggests He would have found it a pretty close call, all things considered. By “available evidence”, I mean the most eminently flexible of texts, the Bible.

I had intended to take advice and guidance from the 2008 Lambeth Conference, that convocation of extravagantly bearded men in purple dresses, but it was like soliciting advice from a tub of margarine. When an issue of principle hove into view, the prelates ducked and pretended it hadn’t been raised at all. I don’t know what our Lord would have made of that. I suspect He would have sniggered and then maybe headed off to the wilderness once again.

Certainly, bits of the Bible seem pretty clear on the issue of homosexuality - smite, smite and smite again until there are no buggers left standing, seems to be the general gist. I refer you to Corinthians and Romans, for starters. This is the view of that upstanding Christian Henry Luke Orombi, the Archbishop of Uganda, who boycotted the conference in case he had to take communion somewhere near a poof, or somewhere near someone who didn’t mind poofs. “I do not think there is a debate,” said Orombi. “When God gives His word, you either take it or leave it.”

Well, quite, a good point well made. The trouble is, God also made his position pretty clear about black people in the curse-of-Ham passage in Genesis. Or, at least, that is what a very large number of Christian church leaders thought back in the 19th century, to the extent that in the Church of the Latter Day Saints, for example, black people were not allowed to be ordained as bishops for many years.

Today the supposed message of the curse of Ham has about as much relevance to the wider world as a meeting of the General Synod and is cleaved to only by a few wacko evangelical bigots storing up their cans of weedkiller in an Oklahoma basement. This, however, is the problem when you follow Orombi's somewhat literal interpretation of what God likes and doesn't like. Orombi has extended his attack from homosexuals to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and indeed the entire edifice of the Anglican church, which he has called a "remnant of British colonialism". A remnant of British civility and decency, might be more to the point.

I cannot see our Lord getting on too well with Orombi, either. This pig-headed and vengeful cleric has conducted a campaign of persecution against the one decent bishop – or former bishop – his country has. Christopher Ssenyonjo, a heterosexual who believes that the church should at least talk to queers, has been vilified, defrocked and even threatened with arrest by Orombi for challenging his diktat.

Meanwhile, the godforsaken branch of the Anglican communion in Nigeria has just thrown its weight behind a government act that outlaws both homosexuality and indeed anyone who has a good word to say about homosexuality. Get caught listening to a Judy Garland CD in downtown Lagos and you could find yourself in prison for five years, with the local Christian church entirely in favour of your punishment.

The Anglican church has accustomed itself lately to worrying far too much about schisms and too little about the notion of what it stands for and what it represents. The bishops gathered in Canterbury might have had their memories tweaked to this effect when, last week, one of the Pope’s little minions, one Walter Kasper, sent them the following message: homosexuality is “disordered behaviour that must be condemned”. Kasper then chucked in a couple of broadsides about women as well, just in case anyone thought the Catholic church was merely homophobic and not a proud bastion of misogyny, too.

The first schism was no bad thing, the bishops might consider. And a second one might be just as uplifting.

* * * * *

One thousand British Gas middle managers were herded into a conference centre in Birmingham and forced to listen to Jimmy Carr tell jokes as part of the company’s strategy to ensure that its employees suffer the same levels of misery as their benighted customers. Many couldn’t take it; later there were punch-ups and projectile vomiting as the managers found a way to express their inchoate rage. The event cost £250,000 and was intended to provide employees with a framework to explain to customers why their company had just hiked prices by 35%.

Those energy supply experts Lawrence Dallaglio and Steve Rider were also booked to address the throng and there was a champagne reception and unlimited amounts of beer and wine. Perhaps that was the unconscious message the bosses wished to impart: that the only way one might accept the blind cheek of British Gas’s price rise was to be rendered insentient by industrial quantities of alcohol. British Gas has doubled its prices inside four years; Sam Laidlaw, its chief executive, trousers nigh on £2m each year. Watching Carr look pleased with himself is, I suppose, a small price to pay.

Pretty clued up

Let us all make a pledge to take our beautiful actresses more seriously, almost as seriously as they take themselves. Last week Greta Scacchi complained that she was not taken remotely seriously in her 1980s heyday as a consequence of shedding her clothes in every film in which she appeared. Now Keira Knightley is worried people think she’s stupid because she didn’t go to university, and insists on telling interviewers she is working her way through Albert Speer’s biography and the collected works of Germaine Greer. Oh, Lordy – girls, relax; you have nothing to prove. You are both incredibly clever and talented actresses and we take you very seriously indeed. Now, if you could just undo one more button on that blouse . . .

Stop me if you've heard it before . . .

Academics from somewhere called Wolverhampton University have discovered the oldest British joke, a one-liner that predates even Jimmy Carr’s material. Here it is. What hangs at a man’s thigh and wants to poke the hole that it has often poked before? Answer: a key. Cue guttural uproarious laughter, burst ribs etc. The joke dates from the 10th century and is depressing for two reasons. First, while we often believe the past to be gilded with a sort of raw dignity and seriousness, it’s clear that your average Anglo-Saxon from the Dark Ages had the wit and mentality of Roy “Chubby” Brown. Second, it seems that men wore key fobs dangling down from their trouser belts. Soon they will discover Norman furry dice and the past will never be the same again.

* * * * *

How come David Miliband is only a Scotsman’s scowl away from being prime minister? His ascent has been so rapid and so apparently effortless.

The answer may lie in a story that circulated about a previous Labour leader. It is said that on the eve of the 1997 general election, Satan appeared before Tony Blair and offered him a bargain. “What is it?” Blair asked the Antichrist.

The Devil replied: “I will give you not just this general election, Mr Blair, but three general elections with crushing majorities. In return, however, I will claim the souls of you and your wife, your children and any subsequent children you have.” Blair listened to this, narrowed his eyes and said: “Um . . . okay . . . what’s the catch?”

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