From where I'm stood, I can barely see a thing past the gawpers and the camera crews, the journalists and the zealots. Oh, yes, and the genuinely religious, half of them hoping for a miracle, half for it all to be a ridiculous scam, about to be exposed on international TV. Perhaps if move slightly to the right here, and stand on this bit of a lump in the field. 

Ah, much better, I can now just about glimpse a balding head and a set of shoulders. By the way, male pattern baldness, there's a Divine joke from the "Lord Almighty" if ever I heard one, His Omnipresence having flowing grey locks and all.

Any road, he's facing away from me of course, and a placard reading "John 12:32" or something sways into my line of sight now and then. Still, you can't win them all. And of course, as I've seen the miracle before it's only polite to let someone else have a better view. 

I never really understood why people do that. With the placards I mean. You can see them at any large gathering of people, soccer matches or rock concerts. Do they think they're going to convert someone watching? Beyond me. As far as I know, the only way that someone will truly believe in God or Jehovah or whatever, is by hearing voices. Then, oh man, then they're gone. Bang, religion kicks them in the head and they sort of go mad for a bit. They forswear all evil acts as the good book tells them to. Of course, that's only right and proper, but they can get a bit boring. Let your hair down guys, everyone needs a bit of fun. It's not all Kum-bye-ah in the real world, I can tell you, and you've just got to let off steam sometimes. Then again, isn't Divine Joy the absolute best thing in this realm, so who am I to criticise? 

Where was I? Oh yes, the man with the bald head. Emlyn Jones, ex-headteacher, resident of Blackwood, Gwent. Down in the Valleys, the sound of male voice choirs echoing through the empty caverns of the coal mines. A sad sort of place, but perfect for Mr Jones to start his experiment. You see, according to him, his machine wouldn't work in many places. A combination of the melancholy air, the mountains and the dragons. 

Actually, there's no dragons in Wales any more. They died out long ago. One of the finest moments of the Creation, and "Pouff!" they were gone. Well not exactly pouff, more like a "boom" with the dragons. Beautiful creatures, bit of a shame about the design flaw in the breathing department. Still, one day they were there, then they were not. 

Sorry, yes, I'm diverting myself away from the explanation in hand. I tend to do that you know. And you know where such lack of concentration can get you. I'll try to tell you the whole thing now, without digressions.  

Mr Jones, of the thinning pate, claims to have invented a machine that allows him to talk to God. Big concept, but as simple as that to explain. He switches it on, twiddles a few knobs, pulls a couple of puller things and God says hello. He won't reveal, for obvious reasons, how exactly it works. Just something to do with a barometric change brought about by the atmoshere of the area reacting with special circuitry inside the radio, with the pervading melancholy of the situation acting as a catalyst.  He knocked it up in his potting shed. 

He was talking on his Divine Wireless for a couple of weeks before he even told his wife. She of course had been thinking it was a bit strange that suddenly he started spending every evening in the dark with his tools, coming in late with a serene smile on his face. Still, that was her Emlyn all over, as she told her sister in Abergwen. 

By chance, he was overheard explaining this in a small pub in Newbridge, the Owen Glendwr, by none other than Mary Chatsworth. Funny coincidence, that one of the pre-eminent religious broadcasters in the country happened to be in a rough little pub in a small village on the outskirts of an unremarkable town in the Welsh valleys. Wonder how that came about?  

Listening to him telling his friend Owen, Ms Chatsworth was intrigued by the passion he clearly had for the machine, his unerring belief in it.  Of course she was sceptical, but professional curiousity won easily. The theological implications of such a machinewere unthinkable. Even if it was bogus, the idea of a radio to god was fascinating. She asked the estimable Mr Jones for a demonstration. 

Mr Jones agreed, his reticence about the possible publicity overshadowed completely by his fame-struck reaction to Ms. Chatsworth. (And this from a man claiming to have been speaking to God on the phone for the last few days! Funny how we get like that around celebrity.)  Around the religious communities in South Wales, Ms Chatsworth is apparently seen as some sort of Media Messiah, bringing the word of the Lord to the poor deprived middle classes in the usually God-foresaken English southern counties.  

Sat on a white PVC chair in Mr Jones' shed, Ms Chatsworth was instantly won over. The radio voice answered her questions, that no-one had a prayer of knowing other than her mother, long since dead. She went into media overdrive, first on Radio Four, then on her own TV programme. Then one of the tabloid rags got hold of the story, and, showing a savvy that she was not previously well known for, Ms Chatsworth took full advantage. The paper ran a full, four page spread about the radio. Although they had not yet seen it in action, the spread included easy to follow diagrams of how the radio might look. It also had useful maps showing the exactly where the Welsh Valleys are.  

This snowballed, and for days there was talk of little else. A small war started in Uzbekistan, but it was demoted to page three of even the broadsheets - C-list celebrities' opinions on the Divine Wireless being of more import that another rebel uprising in the Balkans.  All the while Mr Jones kept his own counsel. 

Half the country wanted to believe, and did so straight away; the other half were either disbelievers or agnostic. The Prime Minister could not decide which side he should butter his bread, and held an all-party emergency session. After much deliberation, the great and good of our mother Parliament decided to invoke a long forgotten law concerning heresy, which they gerrymandered into allowing them to seek a demonstration of machine.          

Mr Jones took legal advice on the matter, but was told he had no choice to comply. (The fact that Mr Cecil Barnes-Williamson was a member of the Church of England Special Religious Advisory Committee and had chosen Law over the Clergy had somehow escaped Mr Jones.)   

 
Which leads us to this windswept hillside in Gwent. A balding, slightly stooped gentleman whom I can hardly see, selected members of our press and other media, some law enforcement, representatives of all the Churches and Registered Religious bodies of our country, Mary Chatsworth, ubiquitous and obligatory celebrities, a few MPs, some royalty, me and some select members of the public.  

The radio is set on a plinth covered with blue cloth on a trestle table on a small raised platform. It's a bit unassuming really. An old fashioned brown wooden box with a few balkalite dials and buttons on the front and a beige semi-circular window.The sort of thing they used to sit around in the war. Flash bulbs are popping irregularly, and the whirr of camera motors is the only noises in the strange calm.  

Mr Jones is stood next to the radio. I can see that Mary is stood next to him, and I get an occasional glimpse of her beatific smile. It's radiant, as if all her life she's waited for this justification.
 
Mr Jones sits down, and reaches for a button...
 
"Infidel" A lone voice shouts from my right, a hundred heads turn at once. "This is an abomination. Don't you know you are being used by Satan for his own foul means. Stop this travesty now before we all suffer. Damn you to hell if you don't."
 
The dissent is coming from a bearded man The crowd babbles as one, some people shout their opinions. Just next to me, right in my ear, one man shouts,     

"Shut it moron. If Satan is using him, it just proves God exists."

Neat argument. Next time, keep it to yourself please, and leave my eardrums alone. A high-ranking police officer, neat and trim, moves along the line of people, gesturing them to sit on the grass. They do, reluctantly, but it does the trick of calming things down. Well done, officer.  

Gradually the din rolls away, leaving that eerie silence once more. Now the placard bearer and his brethren have sat on the floor I can see Mr Jones. Being at the back, I'm allowed to kneel, which I find strange, not being a habitual supplicant.
 
The radio is on now, and Mr Jones is pulling and twiddling. Mary sits back on her chair, looking at the machine, enraptured by what she knows will happen. 

The zealot obviously has had enough of this blasphemy. He jumps up and rushes towards the table, heaving the MP for Redroofs out of the way. The honourable gentleman stumbles and stands on the thigh of the Bishop of Derwent, who cries a less than holy "aahh, watch my leg you bugger".  

This diverts attention momentarily from the zealot. Just as he makes a grab for the radio though, Mary Chatsworth gets in his way.  

"Stop it! Now!" she says with some authority. "Please, allow this man to show the miracle he has found. I can assure you this is no ploy of the devil, nor is it a sideshow amusement, whatever some of you may think."
 
The last comment is directed at the media. A respectable number turn red at her attentions. The zealot meanwhile stands in front of her, his lost momentum making him flounder. He faces the biggest dilemma of his life. Should he rush the table once more, but risk hurting her, or should he stand his ground and argue the point in front of all these people? He does neither, but stands rocking forward and backwards slightly, blinking, raising one arm and lowering it, as if to speak.

"Hang on, hang on," comes another voice from the crowd, rescuing him. Heads turn. Oh no, that's all we need - an MP joining in. It's Bernard Middlewick, MP for Carlisle East, renowned for his straight talking, oop north attitude.  

"Why do we ‘ave to go through with this at all?" the last vowel seems to last for seconds. "He's just a bloody crackpot.            

"And you lot," he means the media of course, "your bloody silly season has blown this out of all proportion. I say, ‘Let him sit on his mountain and play with his gizmo'. He's just like all these madmen, screwed wrongly in the head. Get to church, you loon."
 
The zealot takes exception to this, mainly as an excuse to solve his dilemma about storming the podium and destroying the instrument of Lucifer.
 
"What? Who are you to call us madmen? Haven't you just sent hundreds of young men to die in the concrete dust of a destroyed city thousands of miles from here? Don't you allow old women to die in wheelchairs? Aren't you all riddled with sin, buggering small boys or being whipped..."
 
Bang! The MP for Carlisle East swings a beautiful right that cracks the zealot right in the middle of his bushy beard. He falls backwards. This startles the crowd momentarily. Then at least ten people leap to their feet. One, a minor but well built cleric from Walsall, grabs Middlewick around his shoulders in a bear hug, trying to be a peacemaker. Unfortunately, a man dressed smartly in a gabardine mac takes this entirely the wrong way and punches the MP for Carlisle East on the nose. I could be wrong, but I'm sure the man in the mac was his opposite number in the Shadow Cabinet.

A melee ensues. A minor Prince wades in to pull the people apart, but is caught on the side of the head by swinging rosary beads intended for the Rabbi Moshe Berne. He staggers away, a small trickle of blood showing below his hair. This prompts his shadowy bodyguards to pull out their pistols and start to wave them about like seven year olds.  

Half the crowd falls to their knees, the others haven't seen the guns. I'm on the floor of course, not having stood up in the first place, but from there I see the MP for Carlisle East is one of the ones still standing. Pretty bravely I reckon, he raises his hands in a placatory gesture and goes over to the Prince. He says something in his ear, and the Prince in turn gestures to the guards to  put the guns away. I'm sure one of them looks a bit peeved, but they guns are put away.   

The zealot has not seen this, and is seems to be haranguing Ms Chatsworth still. She is gamely standing firm, one hand pressed against his chest. Keeping one eye on the gunplay is not making the zealot any happier, but she will not be cowed.  

Mr Jones meanwhile is standing with his arms wrapped around his invention, protecting it.  

"Stop it. Stop it now I tell you!" he is shouting. "This is the Lord's work, and you should not be fighting..."  

"Don't be stupid old man" cuts in one of the reporters. He is flanked by a cameraman and a policeman who is neglecting his duties somewhat. "This is news, you old duffer. You can't stop the news." 

He grabs Mr Jones by the shoulder and tries to pull him away from the radio. Jones is spun round and I can see a snarl of posessiveness on his face as he squares up to the younger, taller man.

That's about enough, I think. Dark grey clouds form above us in just a couple of seconds, and thunder rumbles and tears the sky with noise. Everyone in the crowd hears and all confrontations cease, almost instantaneously. They all look up at the blackening sky.  

Ms Chatsworth mouths "What the f..." but doesn't finish as a single crack of lightning breaks and hits the table. Shards of wood and plastic fly into the crowd. The table snaps cleanly in two and falls onto the stage. The radio crashes to the floor and lies there smouldering, electrically crackling.
 
I was wrong again, wasn't I? This time I was sure you would listen. But I suppose that's the trouble with giving people freewill - you lose some of your hard won omnipotence. Oh well, perhaps I'll stick to burning bushes or putting faces in Artichokes in future.
 
The crowd is stilled, open mouthed, unsure what to do next. Mary Chatsworth stands looking at the remains of the radio, her hair standing up slightly in the static air. Mr Jones has been knocked off his feet.  The cameraman reaches out what looks like a helping hand. Unfortunately, I can see that his camera is smouldering gently from the flap where the batteries go, and from the look on his face, I don't think he is really too pleased with Mr Jones.
 
I turn and walk away, unnoticed as usual.