Dancing

Over the years a huge number of theological man-hours have been spent debating the famous question: How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

In order to arrive at an answer, the following facts must be taken into consideration: Firstly, angels simply don't dance. It's one of the distinguishing characteristics that marks an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don't feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none.

At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen's club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.

So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of argument, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one.

Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They're of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance. [Although it's not what you and I would call dancing. Not good dancing anyway. A demon moves like a white band on "Soul Train."]

And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren't bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. [Although, unless the ineffable plan is a lot more ineffable than it's given credit for, it does not have a giant plastic snowman at the bottom.] But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons. For those of angel stock or demon breed, size, and shape, and composition, are simply options.

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Good Omens - Saturday