To any Muslim readers or contributors to these Forums. I suspect we don't have many though I have dozens of friends who are Islamic. I remember the first time I happened to be in North Africa during Eid Al-Adha (the other Eid is the last day of Ramadan). I was most disturbed to see hundreds of roadside barbecues with ram's heads, adorned with those mighty horns, dangling dead from posts, often still dripping blood.

The reason is - it celebrates Abraham having agreed to sacrifice his son being given dispensation by God to kill a ram instead. So rams are slaughtered, cooked and their meat given to the poor (and to all strangers - I was offered meat many times).

That's fine for sons but not so hot for rams. Who, poor creatures, have a very depressed look in their eyes for several days before Eid. Not as dumb as they look.

Quite apart from feeling sorry for the rams (whose horns are truly beautiful), I wonder about a God who demands the death of anybody, let alone your beloved son. I suspect Satan is involved somewhere, as in so many other areas these days. I must ask Bob Geldof, a close personal friend of Lucifer in return for getting fame, glory and donations back in the 80s.

"I would shake hands with the Devil", he said, back then. I warned him against it at the time but what do I know?

"Kill a ram"? Knowing that Satan has a sense of humour, I rather think RAM stands for RAMifications, something we humans are getting worse at spotting. Or RAM as in computers, often misused. Or RAM as in our eyes during sleep, as we sleepwalk towards the edge of that cliff.