PZ is at this very moment in a church. Not a joke this time, he really is – he’s there to observe Chris Stedman in action. His tweets sound very…restless.

• You know what would be a crappy April fools joke? If I said I found Chris Stedman persuasive. So I won’t.
• It’s a very *nice* room, with very *nice* people. Jeez, but I detest “nice”.
• I learned that Stedman did good rewarding work in assisted living home. How NICE!
• Stedman: religion studies major. Seminarian. Pro-religion advocate. Atheist? Not one word for atheism today. Weird.

Not weird; typical.

Oh damn, wouldn’t you know it, grumble grumble. Here I’ve been friends with Maryam for years but we hadn’t met, so three weeks ago we did at last meet, to our mutual joy, and what happens? She leaves FTB and her heretical ways to get in touch with her fun feminine side. She tells me she’s always loved fashion, and she’s going to go into the trendy decorative hijab line.

“I love beautiful fabrics and colours,” she told me on Skype, “and what a great canvas you have in a burqa! Yards and yards of the stuff, to fill up with your own creative genius.”

Well yes. You know the sort of thing she means.

 

All very decorative and creative, to be sure, but couldn’t she just work with T shirts and jackets instead? Couldn’t she design clothes that are…you know…secular?

“They don’t use as much fabric!” she explained with a merry laugh.

Ok, then why not curtains, quilts, murals, tablecloths? Why not paintings, for that matter?

“Ah,” Maryam said dreamily, “but think how beautiful it is to decorate our cities with all these sparkling brightly-coloured women. Imagine all the cities in the world crowded with magenta and peacock-blue and scarlet embroidered women. I can see it now.”

She has plans for a Fashion Calendar for 2013.