So farewell then, Il Papa.
As I write, here in Snort Towers it's thirty minutes to midnight on April 1 2005 and, if we're to believe the man on Sky, The Pope is very ill indeed.

According to the latest bulletin, his kidneys have failed, his breathing has grown shallow and he may even have flat-lined, all of which is to say that, barring his sudden appearance on the balcony at St Peter's, grinning broadly and shouting 'April Fool!', chances are that His Holiness will have been in the fast lane on the highway to heaven by the time you read this.
The flags are at half-mast in Snort Towers, anyway, the great curtains securely drawn and all the house staff wearing black – although that's only because of the coincidence of Foghat's drummer departing this earth earlier in the week.
Yeah, I know what you're thinking: what are the odds on two of the greats going almost simultaneously like that? But such is the mystery of life and death.
Another puzzle, to Sam Snort at any rate, is why so many of The Pope's followers are mourning his passing. After all, by his and their own essential logic, this should be the highpoint of his life, the buzz to beat every buzz, the moment when all his dreams are realised and he finally becomes a made man.
Look! There goes his soul now, all pure and glistening, ascending through the roof of St Peter's on a fast stairway to heaven, accompanied by golden trumpets and the exquisite close harmony singing of hosts of angels, and other interesting cats.
So why all the long faces?
Surely, if the devout really believe what they say they believe, there should have been a massive party in St Peter's Square, with bands playing songs like Jimmy Webb's 'Up, Up And Away,' Sam and Dave's 'Hold On I'm Coming' and, for old times' sake Sly Stone's 'I Want To Take You Higher'. Hard to believe that my old mucker Sly outlasted the Pope, but there it is.

Lovely Hurling

But no, on the box it's all decades of the rosary, clergymen looking solemn and people generally acting like this is the worst event to have befallen humanity since the Israelites smote the Irish with that late goal in Tel Aviv.
Hang on, this just in: Sky have just shown the front page of tomorrow – that's Saturday – morning's Sun newspaper, which has a big pic of The Pope and the headline, 'In God's Hands'. Now, as a veteran newspaper man himself, Sam has to extend the palm on that one, since from the point of view of the believer, it works perfectly well whether yer man is alive or dead. The story is in the can, the paper is put to bed, and the subs can still get in a swift one or six before last orders in The Frog and Firkin.
Lovely hurling, you'll have to agree, although it doesn't even come close to threatening the prized place in my affections of what is, without doubt, the all-time greatest-ever tabloid headline.
That honour goes to the News Of The World which once ran a story about a male jockey who'd had a sex change, under the pithy two-word header: 'They're Off.'
All bow.
The other thing to say about the The Sun's Papal headline is that it's unusually decorous for the Current Bun. Personally, I would have expected something more along the lines of 'Papa Won't Preach', or maybe 'Gotcha!' accompanied by a nice smiling shot of Ian Paisley.
But I digress. Is there any upside to the departure of the Holy Father, you ask? Well, of course. Notably, there's the chance it gives for all of us to savour once again, the images of his great youth mass in Galway in 1979 and, in particular, that imperishable photograph of Mess(e)rs Casey and Cleary warming up, as it were, the young people of Ireland, before the main event. Yeah, we'll never tire of that one.
Newsflash! Sky is now reporting that The Pontiff's health has been "notably compromised". Well, Mick and Eamonn would know all about that, eh?

White Smoke

That said, it's revelation time. Truth to tell, Sam Snort missed that '79 megabash. Yep, on the very day that The Pope was flying in for the biggest event ever in the history of the country – or at least since Rory'd played Macroom – Sam was flying out to see Gary Numan at the Hammersmith Odeon.
Jeez, how embarrassing was that for a rookie hack, still looking for his first big journalistic break? I mean, Gary Fucking Nuwman. Now, if it had been Foghat or Handsome Dick Manitoba and his fabulous Dictators, well, that would have been a very different story.
Anyway, we seem to have gone off track somewhat – put it down to pre-traumatic stress disorder, as I await the end and, then, the famous puff of white smoke.
Or, in the case of Sam Snort, vice versa.
One final thought: what odds would you get, I wonder, on the next Pope being called George Ringo?