Kelly Rowland appears to believe that God is responsible for Verizon infrastructure

You're at sea. You have a small bit of trouble. Your phone is able to get a signal and you can call for help.

That, most people would assume, was a combination of luck and investment into the mobile phone network.

Not Kelly Rowland, though. She puts it down to God:

Speaking about the accident and how she came to be rescued, Rowland told Metro: "I remember thinking to myself, 'Lord, please don't let this boat capsize'." She added: "I was like, 'Please Lord, give me two bars. He gave me two bars and we contacted some folks that were on land and they helped us." The boat was 33 miles (53km) north of Provincetown when it was stranded.

Why would you only pray for a weak singnal? "O, lord, give me 4G, but not yet."

Furthermore, why would you ask god for a weak phone signal rather than, say, a boat, or help, or one of those whales out the Bible that you can live in assuming it's not a mistranslation of a metaphor for depression?

And, come to that, what sort of God is it who'd see one of his children bobbing about on the ocean, and decide that the intercession required was limited voice-carrier capability?

Some went out on the sea in ships; they were merchants on the mighty waters.
They saw the works of the Lord, his wonderful deeds in the deep.
For he spoke and stirred up a tempest that lifted high the waves.
They mounted up to the heavens and went down to the depths; in their peril their courage melted away.

Chris Brown: The sort of thug only a mother could love

I know, I know, it's hard for mothers to see the faults in their kids - after all, admitting fault in them is tacitly to concede the flaws in your own parenting skills.

But you'd think Joyce Hawkins, mother of Chris Brown, might have found something to criticise in her son, right? Not a bit of it:

"I just want to say from the bottom of my heart thank you for your continued support. I'm sorry I wasn't allowed to speak to anyone as this case was on going. I can now say this has been the most painful moment in my entire life, but knowing that you were still standing by Chris' side in his time of need made this a little easier for us. Because of all your prayers God brought him through. I just want to say God has never failed me and never will. All moms and dads please stand by your children and pray for their goodness each and everyday."


"I made a promise... I would never be ashamed of him no matter where I am or who I talk to. You see this whole thing isn't about Chris, it's about God. He wants to show all of you the goodness of him through Chris. Chris will be addressing all of his fans very soon. We love you so much and so does God."

Now, standing by your kid - that's admirable and brave. But unless you're realistic - and share your disappointment in their behaviour - how is the child ever going to learn right from wrong?

And prelates of all denominations might like to intervene at all this praising God; the obvious question being 'what sort of God intervenes to get a soft sentence and a stage-managed orchestrated sob-session on Larry King for a bloke who hits women, but couldn't be arsed to intercede to stop Chris Brown from smashing Rihanna's face in in the first place?'

Mind you, this message from his Mom appears on Brown's website. Given his record for hitting women, perhaps she felt she had no choice.

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.