From now on, I will only accept emails beginning with the following words: "Our columnist, who art in Hong Kong, hallowed be your column."

And all letters to me should all end with the word "amen" instead of the more common "yours sincerely" or "die, scum".

Why is this? Because I have noticed that divinity is coming back into fashion.

Villagers in Jharkhand, India, have been praying to Barack Obama, for example. "Only honest parliamentarians like Obama can change the fate of the country," villager Sailen Sen, 71, told reporters as he folded his hands to pray. The villagers also sang sacred hymns to the US President.

This is a brilliant idea. Anyone who has tried to get an interview with Obama knows that he has massed armies of secretaries and flunkies who intercept every call and letter and email. Their view is that His Coolness must not be disturbed.

But prayers? They fly right through all the defenses, whizzing across the world (no postage necessary) and fly through the White House windows.

Does Obama actually reply to these prayers? I’m told that believers DO get personal visions of The Obamatron solving their problems, but only if they drink a LOT of sacred wine.

No member of my immediate family has achieve the status of a deity (unless you count my wife, whose every word must be obeyed), but one of my father’s buddies has. My dad knew Mohandas K. Gandhi as a good-hearted, insightful guy. But Gandhi now has his own temple, at Bhatra in Orissa, India, with a statue of him at its heart. The head priest reads out the great man’s teachings every morning and evening. Now that’s what I call an over-achiever.

Incidentally, I suggest that godhood be stripped from Chuck Norris, the US actor. Mr Norris’s fans famously created a list of "Chuck Norris facts", which are one-liners which show their admiration for him.

1. When Chuck Norris does pushups, he doesn’t lift himself up. He pushes the world down.

2. Chuck Norris counted to infinity twice.

3. Chuck Norris went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. He deflected the bullets with his beard, but the president’s head exploded out of sheer amazement.

4. If Chuck Norris is late, time better slow down.

Indian film fans read these and were inspired by them (that is, they copied them) as The Rajnikanth Facts, referring to India’s own top action hero.

I was shocked to hear that Norris has taken out a lawsuit against his fans, claiming that lines such as those above are not factually accurate. This means that Mr Norris will eventually end up in a courtroom using diagrams and scientific exports to show that the world doesn’t actually go down when he does push-ups.

You’d have to have less intelligence than a one-celled protozoid to not realize that these are jokes. On the other hand, given the general record of decisions by US juries, that may be over-estimating their intelligence.

Rumor has it that lawyers put him up to it. One assumes that during the trial, Mr Norris will also have to try to count to infinity, twice. It should be a rather lengthy hearing. Clearly the lawyers are on a billable hours system.

This column is over. You may not go in peace.