I’VE decided to clear the air regarding my attendance last week at the annual Satanic Dinner and Charity Auction.

I must make it known that if there is any suggestion that I did anything wrong or was aware of anything which was wrong, I shall take legal advice.

Neither myself nor any of my friends who were present at the event had reason to believe anything untoward would take place.

We certainly had no reason to suppose that there would be any human sacrifice, invocations of the unnatural beasts of the fiery pit or attempts to summon the Evil One himself and have him do our bidding in exchange for the blood of the innocent.

Certain mischievous people have pointed out that the invitations and publicity material featured prominent images of Pazuzu, demon of wind-borne pestilence, alongside representations of Baal, Lilith, Choronzon and goat-headed Baphomet resplendent upon his throne.

I can only say that no reasonable person could have been expected to deduce from this that anything untoward was likely to happen.

The same goes for the fact that at the beginning of the evening, a large group of people dressed in the simple white robes and garlands of the human sacrifice were obliged to parade around the venue in full view of everybody present.

Mischievous commentators have also pointed out that the publicity material for this event and previous ones was quite clear that admission was open only to “...committed devil-worshippers, dabblers among demons and friends of Beelzebub, because this is the most Satanic event of the year.”

I don’t see anything wrong with that. It is no different to running an exclusive event for any other group in society, but the politically-correct social justice warriors and virtue-signallers never complain about those, do they?

Spoilsports like this, with their hypocrisy and double standards, are responsible for much of what is wrong with British life in 2018.

Too many people refuse to be accountable for their destinies and recognise that we are all free to make decisions.

That includes some of the people who have been complaining about the sacrificing which was supposedly going on at the event. Not that I condone any sacrificing, of course, or saw any. I didn’t do any sacrificing, nobody at my table did any sacrificing and I didn’t see any sacrificing going on anywhere in the room.

However, if there was any sacrificing or attempted sacrificing, the supposed victims have only themselves to blame.

They knew exactly what they were doing when they agreed to wear the robes and garlands and sign legally-binding documents to the effect that they understood there was likely to be some sacrificing, and they promised not to object or tell anybody about it.

The possibility that some of them probably only signed up because they were desperate and might otherwise not be able to keep roofs over their heads is irrelevant.

Disgracefully, there are now widespread calls for everybody who attended the gathering to be named and, where appropriate, prosecuted.

Apparently human sacrifice is still a crime even if the people who end up sacrificed or nearly sacrificed know the risks.

All I can say is that this is deeply unfair.

After all, sexual assault is also a criminal offence, and there are rules saying allegations of it should be thoroughly investigated.

In spite of that, nobody seems to be in much of a hurry to do anything when rich businessmen are accused of such offences.

A clear example of double standards, I call it.

Online threats should meet full force of the law

CALLS are rightly being made for an end to the unwarranted online abuse of politicians, both in Swindon and further afield.

On one level online political discussion is great because it allows the previously voiceless to offer instant critiques of those who represent us.

Although most of those voices belong to people worth hearing, some of them belong to people who believe anonymity is a licence to issue threats.

Picturing them always puts me in mind of an old line from horror author HP Lovecraft: “Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl.”

It’s worth remembering, however, that online abuse, including threats of violence and worse, is rife not just in online political discussion but also in countless other corners of the internet.

It’s also worth remembering that there are laws against such behaviour. It is no more legal to threaten a person with violence while slobbering over a keyboard than it is to do so in person, on the telephone or in a letter.

Perhaps if these laws were invoked rather more often than at present, and offenders met with the sort of punishments which deter others, there would be less of a problem.

Mere insults containing no threats, of course, are a different matter.

One solution is simply to ban commentators who are insulting, although they tend to come back.

Another is to alter site defaults so that anybody who lacks the courage to put their name to their thoughts is automatically named Anonymous Coward.

If I were a politician, though, I’d begin my making sure everything I put online was beyond reproach.