Maybe this is why they call it a coffin surfboard

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll be saying it again: The absolutely casual, absolutely integrated approach to religion in Ireland really strikes me after our years in Seattle, which apparently has fewer churches per capita than any other city in the good ol' US of A. 

Today's God-is-everywhere classic is brought to you by the schedulers of Ocean FM, up on the North West coast of Ireland, whose description of their Saturday morning programming runs like this:

Easy listening/obituary notices/surf report

Or, in the style of a tabloid subeditor (my secret dream job):

Beach Boys/beached boys/to the beach, boys!

In this instance, it's mostly the order in which the schedulers chose to detail the show's offerings that has me cocking my head to one side with a "hunh???" Imagine being in that programming meeting - the topics up on a whiteboard whilst everyone argued about which order made the most sense. Quite how they came up with this one is a mystery, but I'm glad they did because it made me laugh out loud, and then it made me think.

Death is especially on my mind this week, much as I wish it wasn't. And as coincidence would have it, the image this programming line-up evokes - a few bars of Good Vibrations, a moment of silence in respect of the dead, then off out to catch a wave - seems as appropriate a tribute to this particular death (of an old friend) than any I could have conjured up on my own.  As the Wilson brothers put it:

Well I've been thinking 'bout

All the places we've surfed and danced and 

All the faces we've missed so let's get

Back together and do it again

I wish we could, mate - I wish we could.