“Are you still going to go to Italy?” someone said to me yesterday, reflecting on the devastating earthquake in Central Italy on Wednesday.

It would be madness to cancel a holiday on the basis of an earthquake several hundred miles away from where we are heading (Sorrento) but as the tragedy unfolded, it soon became clear that this was yet another disaster in what is becoming a lengthening list of acts by God.

Is God like a terrorist? Does he ring up a local media group and claim responsibility? If so, he is a far bigger bastard than Satan in my opinion, in fact, Satan doesn’t seem responsible for nearly as much carnage as the Lord who appears to monopolise hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanoes these days.

It is little wonder that agnostics are swaying towards atheism when every time they turn on the TV, God is up to his old tricks again, wiping out swathes of the human race in numbers that ISIS could only dream of.

There is substantial amount of Royalists out there asking God to save our Queen but judging by the Lord’s track record, you can understand why Jeremy Corbyn mutters the national anthem under his breath. He can trust the Lord no more than he can trust Richard Branson and a CCTV recording.

Of course, the earthquake (whisper this quietly) may not have been God’s fault, it may have been caused by shifting plates on one of earth’s many fault lines as claimed by mad geologists embarking on information gained from facts.

I’m not going to say God he makes it up for narcissistic purposes, but there was a geological bloke on the TV last night who made the earthquake look like it may have just been one of those things and nothing to do with God at all!

That said, what do scientists know about such things? I’d prefer to listen to God’s loyal worshippers like Tony Blair, George Bush and Donald Trump. They know him so well they take his advice and blow up people to make the world a better place.

Quite what Satan is up to during this jolly jamboree of God inspired genocide and paedophillia I just don’t know; it’s as if though the poor chap is more or less redundant.

Maybe he is still tied up with a heated fiddle playing contest in Georgia?