The Lord spoke to Noah

The Lord spoke to Noah and said, ''In six months I am going to make it rain until Great Britain is covered with water and all the evil things are destroyed. But, I want to save a few good people and two of every living thing in the country. I am ordering you to build an ark.'' And, in a flash of lightning, he delivered the specifications for the ark. ''OK,'' Noah said, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints, ''I'm your man.'' Six months passed, the sky began to cloud up, and the rain began to fall in torrents. The Lord looked down and saw Noah sitting in his yard, weeping, and there was no ark. ''Noah!'' shouted the Lord, ''Where is My ark?'' A lightning bolt crashed into the ground right beside Noah. ''Lord, please forgive me!'' begged Noah. ''I did my best, but there were some big problems. First, I had to get a building permit for the ark's construction, but Your plans did not meet their code. So, I had to hire an engineer to redo the plans, only to get into a long argument with him about whether to include a sprinkler system. "Then the council got on my case, telling me I needed planning permission. Next there was a problem with the wood. It had to be obtained from renewable resources and apparantly we have used so much lately that none is availa1ble until next month." "I started to collect the animals and got in trouble with the animal rights activists who wanted proof that the animals would be safe and well cared for. Also under European regulations it turned out to be illegal to keep many of them in captivity." ''Right now, I'm still trying to resolve a complaint with the Equal Opportunities Commission over how many minorities I'm supposed to hire. The inland revenue has seized all my assets claiming that I am trying to leave the country, and I just got a notice from them that I owe some kind of use tax. Really, I don't think I can finish the ark in less than five years.'' With that, the sky cleared, the sun began to shine, and a rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. ''You mean you are not going to destroy the country?'' he asked hopefully. ''No point'' said the Lord. ''It seems New Labour already has.''