Book Review Bo Fowler’s Scepticism Inc

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1998 Jonathan Cape. The Metaphysical Betting Shop is a bookmaker's dream. It only takes bets on arguments that are impossible to prove, such as the question of God’s existence. The business begins accidentally, when Edgar Malroy, a militant, cynical atheist, heckles a small town country priest in front of his congregation. When the priest sermonises about Jesus rising from the dead, Edgar asks how much he’s prepared to wager on the idea. The priest thinks he can stop Edgar by giving him money, and so do many of the parishioners. The incident attracts the attention of the press and more metaphysical bets are made. In no time at all, Edgar has built up a business empire, comparable to MacDonald’s. He employs scantily clad bunny girls in white swimsuits and wearing fluffy question marks to take the bets. Each of these girls has to be trained to respond to every customer with the same nonchalant words; ‘Who Knows?" Each customer of the betting shops goes away with a badge bearing the legend, ‘Put your money where your metaphysics are." All the world’s religions get in on the act, Christians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, Muslims, Jews & Buddhists, alike. Some of their leaders get so addicted to metaphysical gambling that they actually bankrupt their churches. The Archbishop Of Canterbury ruins the Church of England. With many religions perishing this way, the surviving faiths declare a holy war on the Metaphysical betting shops, (now part of the vast Scepticism Inc. Corporation with its own TV and radio shows). Edgar buys old churches and temples to store betting slips in, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, and he embarks on a plan to fertilise the world’s deserts (which he has used Church money to purchase) and feed the starving people of the world, but can he do it before the fanatical religionists opposed to his sceptical cause, catch up with him? This story has a unique narrator, a Shopalot supermarket shopping trolley fitted with artificial intelligence technology. There are many other great off the wall ideas here; Pope John John declares that condoms are all right to use, but only if blessed personally by the Pope himself. Maybe we should start such a betting shop ourselves? I think people would actually gamble in this way, given half a chance. Fowler has written a brilliant, scathing first novel here. He happily denounces anyone who is religious as being simply ‘nuts’. Who knows? Care to wager? Arthur Chappell