I have no religion, no faith, and yet some distant spiritual history came up into a script I wrote this week. Short version: nothing ever leaves us and everything comes into our writing at some point. And as soon as I say that, I’m thinking that there is a truth I hold self-evident, which is that I am not telling you anything you don’t already know.

Still, I’m so devoid of faith that it surprised me. You don’t need to know the details and I expect there’s a coffee, tea or alternative beverage that will be more worth your time just now.

But since I seem to need to tell you, here’s what happened. I do a weekly YouTube video for writers who use Macs, iPhones and iPads, that kind of thing. This week’s “58keys” happened to be the fourth time I’d tried recording this one and that wouldn’t matter to anyone, except the three failures taught me something relevant to the topic.

So the fourth version was also a rewrite, and the new script included the phrases “three times… something” and “three times more… something.”

You could watch, but it’s quicker if I tell you: I unthinkingly wrote and performed those words in my best Biblical preacher voice. True, you have to be told this because it’s not a very good best Biblical preacher voice. Yet without fully remembering the root of the words, I had the sense of them and it got into the writing.

Not enough so that I’ve looked up the original, mind. Someone denied someone three times and this is definitely bad, I was taught, though my schoolboy brain was probably focused on what pressure the denying person was under. Like the way a fella – this is religion, it’s always a fella – had reason to doubt something and has since been pilloried over it for two thousand years and counting.

Considering it’s supposed to be all about forgiveness, religion can’t half hold a grudge.

I wonder if I’m sounding at least brusque for how I’m repeatedly saying I don’t happen to have faith. I also wonder if I just want to hang on to you for a minute more, to natter on for little longer before getting down to work.

Let me do this. Let me tell you that there are three things that I do believe, that in fact I believe with a passion that could shake walls.

I believe that we are better when we work together. I get that not everyone agrees there, or we wouldn’t have Brexit now, and we wouldn’t keep getting this incendiary bollocks about immigration being anything other than great.

Then I also believe that it is better to be crew than passenger. I’d rather work my passage than be waited on.

And lastly, I believe that the show comes first. As I’ve got older, I’ve become a lot more careful about projects and work I take on, but if I’m doing it, it’s going to be done.

Which doesn’t really tally with how seconds ago I admitted that I’m using you as an excuse to stay babbling rather than get down to work. Okay, you got me there. You’re harsh this morning. Harsh, but fair.

I’ll get on with the day now and that’s the truth. Gospel.