The wages of sin

I expect you'll have noticed that Bishop Girotti has decided to update the seven deadly sins to something a little more appropriate to 21st century mores. Fine, but why? What's wrong with the old lot: envy, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth and wrath?

Quite a bit apparently, so the good bishop has decided to add drug use and pushing, genetic engineering, obscene wealth, pollution and social injustice.

Fair enough, but in my quest to fit each of these to a modern psyche, I kept returning to the old lot. After all, they have been around since Pope Gregory dreamt them up back in the sixth century. And I think they can still be very handily adapted to the way we behave here and in the rest of today's world.

So let's take each one and slot it neatly into a present-day context. Most of these deadly sins ought to have the prefix 'thou shalt not' tagged in front of them, so let's go with that.

Envy: Thou shalt not... covet thy neighbour's flat screen TV, latest model Porsche, American Express platinum card, weekend farmhouse with pool in Għarb and blonde bimbo wife. Neither shalt thou resent the fact that this same singularly uninspired and uninspiring 'businessman' is able to afford two foreign vacations a year and is currently contemplating upping his property portfolio by buying a four-bedroomed beach house in Tobago, with helipad.

Gluttony: Thou shalt not pig out on executive expense account lunches in posey Valletta restaurants four days out of five, devouring three high-cholesterol courses, a bottle of expensive wine, and a slice of cassata to take out. Nor shalt thou compound the offence by swearing blind to thy wife that thou only tookest for thy lunch but one slice of unbuttered wholemeal toast and a single radish at thy desk in the office.

Greed: Thou shalt not make more money on thy totally fictitious expense account than thou makest on thy already over-inflated salary. Nor shalt thou evict great aunt Rose from her family home in Dingli Street, Sliema, drop the building, then bribe someone who knowest someone from Mepa to grant thee a permit to build a block of jerry-built flats on the premises, then flogeth off each one at €300,000 a throw!

Lust: (Definitely the most satisfying of the seven deadly sins.) However, thou shalt not play away with the 18-year-old unbelievably attractive female foreign language student from Sweden, who is lodging in thy home, even though she may well be so much shapelier and definitely sexier than thy miserable old wife, and very much more accommodating.

Sloth: Thou shalt not have a lie-in on a Sunday morning and send thy wife out to fetch the Sunday papers. Or, call in sick to the office, when thou art in reality totally knackered after a dirty weekend in Gozo with the afore-mentioned foreign language student, (By the way, that's a double whammy of deadly sins - sloth and lust together).

Wrath: Thou shalt not get totally p****d-off when Juve lose 4-1 at home in the Champions League to some unpronounceable Norwegian team nobody has ever heard of, made up of eight Brazilians with Norwegian passports, two Italians and a seven-foot Polish goalkeeper. Neither shalt thou stamp thy foot in a paddy when thy wife leaves lumpy bits in the Bolognese sauce and also when she forgets to wipe around the rim of the bath after she's used it.

When it comes to the new seven deadly sins, I have to admit there is one I'd dearly love to commit - even if it meant eternal damnation or something. I'd give my last euro cent to be guilty of, just once, the modern deadly sin of obscene wealth. Just lay it on me Bishop Girotti, then I can repent in disgusting luxury.