God "rather keen" to be left out of Eminem-Mariah spat

Visions of the Holy Mother have appeared in Lourdes, Knock and Fatima over the past 24 hours to brief members of the press and clergy about God's response to Nick Cannon's latest attacks on Eminem.

Nick Cannon - who, you'll already have forgotten, is married to Mariah Carey - has been Bible-Tweeting to show the latest depth of his hump with Eminem:

Nick wrote: "Quote of the day, 'Never argue with fools because from a distance people can't tell who is who.' "

He later added: "Never take your own revenge, but rather give place unto the wrath. For it is written vengeance is mine, I will repay... PREACH! 'I will bless those that bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse.' Genesis 12:3."

Nick's response continued: "Be patient in the moment of anger and escape a hundred days of sorrow!

"People who project negativity ultimately are crying out for their own broken souls. Trying to save a hater is like trying to teach astrophysics to a wino!"

The Lourdes manifestation of the BVM was direct: "Look, I was talking to God this morning" she said, wiping the tears of blood from her eyes. "He was pretty clear that he didn't want to get involved in the dispute. 'Mary' he said to me, 'I haven't even been asked to judge an early round on American Idol. Why would I want to come in to judge this one'"

Two hours later, appearing on the wall in a chapel in Fatima, the second vision added this: "God's been musing on this all morning, you know. He's especially annoyed that Cannon did the thing about 'vengeance being mine'. Because it is. It's his. If there's any vengeance to be done, God will be doing it. Make no mistake of that. And he'll decide where it goes, thank you very much. Because it's his. The vengeance. Not Nick Cannon's, thank you very much."

The vision then cured two of the faithful of halitosis, and one man's bunions, before de materialising.

A further appearance at Knock was apparently preceded by a disembodied voice yelling "Look, Lord, can't you just send a burning bush? Or get a Twitter account? Do I always have to be your bloody go-between?". A shimmering, but slightly annoyed looking vision of the Virgin then appeared, delivering the following statement:

"God is rather keen to be left out of this whole thing anyway. He's everywhere, remember, so had to watch when Eminem and Mariah were at it - he can't look away, can he? And he tells me it was all somewhat dull for what's meant to be original sin, though I couldn't comment on that myself, could I?

"Although what God's really annoyed about at the moment is the suggestion that there's no point in teaching astrophysics to a wino. 'Cannon seems very good at quoting me' he was fuming, 'but he doesn't seem to understand me very well'. God then went on this long lecture about how winos are no less capable of understanding astrophysics than students are, and just because he's given them a drink problem doesn't mean there's no reason why someone shouldn't clean a wino up, dry them out, and help them follow their dreams of studying astrophysics. Except then he got even more angry, demanding to know why people wanted to understand physics at that level anyway. Seriously. He doesn't like it, the astrophysics. Sees it as people poking about in his handiwork. 'It's like someone going into a hotel room, and folding back the carpet to see if there's dust been swept underneath it' - that's what God's always saying about astrophysics. I wouldn't know, myself, not having been able to get a hotel room even when nine months pregnant, but tell him that and he blows up: 'It's a metaphor... why can't you people grasp the idea of metaphor and allegory? Why are you always looking for the sodding ark like there's an actual ark?' He's a pain to live with, I'm sorry, but he is.

"Anyway... there you have it. Please leave God out of this, Nick Cannon. Unless you want to spend eternity with the other fella, teaching astrophysics to derelicts."

Joanna Southcott was unavailable for comment before publication deadline.