All Hail the Rolled God.

Yeah, and my religion lets me have gin and vodka too.

(Image donated by Email)

Census time approaches. It's all based, like a ten-year version of the MOT, on conditions on the day. So, when it comes to employment, I might be employed as a scientist on that day. Or maybe I will be engaged in writing on that day. Maybe I will be 'idle rich' or 'idle poor' depending on what's in my bank account at the time.

Maybe I will be a gardener or a ghosthunter or a potential political candidate or a washing machine repairer or a shelf builder or a gravel raker or a floral display installer or a tobacco industry shill or an independent virginity assessor or... anything.

That's the great part about being self-employed. No defined job description and no employer. On that one day, on Census Day, I could be anything. It all depends on what I'm doing on the day. No other day matters, just that one. Hey, I don't make the rules but you can be sure I'm going to play with them. False information? If I put anything other than what I am doing on that day, that would be false. If I put what I am doing on that day, it's true. It's what I am, for that day.

How many bedrooms? A bedroom is a room with a bed in it. Just because it's upstairs does not make it a bedroom. I have an attic, and that's not an overbedroom (apart from the bit that is, in fact, over the bed).

So if all the beds are in one room for the day, there is only one bedroom on that day.

This is going to be fun. All the answers I give on that form will be perfectly true - for that day.

There is going to be a religion question. I am not going to put 'Jedi' even though it's the fastest growing religion in the country. I considered putting 'Sith' and calling myself 'Darth Leg-iron' but there are 390,127 Jedis looking for Darth someone so they can kick the crap out of him. It's not a good idea to be that someone at the moment, not until the Death Star is finished anyway, and I must remember to put a mesh over that vent this time. Besides, the Darth hat looks so dated now.

I can't remember what I put last time. It might have been 'Nun' which would cause a bit of head scratching. I remember going through all the options but can't remember what I decided on. Whatever it was, I was probably the only one.

Options this time have included 'Worshipper of the Crocus God', or maybe 'Santaist', which involves dressing in red, coming out at night, drinking, smoking, putting on weight and sneaking into small children's bedrooms with a sack while they sleep. Ho ho ho.

Mr. A. has the perfect solution. My religion will be 'Smoker'. Well Rastafarians get away with it. Smoking cannabis is part of that religion. Smoking tobacco will be all of mine.

Smokers are about 20% of 60 million people. That's 12 million. We can whup some Jedi ass this time round even if only 10% of us put 'smoker' as our religion. Two million muslims? Pah. We can wipe them out with one simultaneous exhalation of second hand smoke.

Go on. You know if you put 'Christian' they're just going to persecute you anyway so why not go the whole hog and put 'Smoker'? You can believe in any god and be a Smoker. You can be an atheist and be a Smoker. We exclude nobody. We are the most inclusive religion there is. Believe what you want, worship who you want any way you want. We don't prescribe nor do we proscribe. You can even join if you don't smoke as long as you don't mind the rest of us doing it.

All it needs is a name. Smokotology? Smokianity? Smokism?

Ah, we can work all that out later. After a smoke. Then, everything ASH says or does, every NHS pronouncement and every council edict will be 'inciting religious hatred'. Well, it works for every other religion (except Christianity) and there are more of us than them.

If every smoker did this, someone somewhere might finally sit up and realise that what ASH has been telling them hasn't been entirely (or remotely) true.

It has to be worth a try.