Strip away all those religious connotations (I would, wouldn't I) and I actually think that heaven and hell are quite useful concepts for helping to define our lives on this planet. Seeing a simple linearity, though, doesn't wash. There's no scale of one to ten with hell=0 and heaven=10. You can have a heavenly orgasm and realise, two seconds later, that you foot is itching like crazy, or that you're on your last clean shirt. You can have a hellish day at the office and savour that sublime first draught of Talisker when you get home (which you had increasingly heavenly expectations of as the afternoon dragged on). You can be standing there freezing nearly to death at the bus stop and when the bus finally arrives the most beautiful woman you've ever seen is on it. You can hurry along worrying about what you'll have for lunch, or you can savour the feel of your feet on the ground, right there at the exact interface between the Earth and space. Stand outside and wish you'd cut that bloody tree back that is now shading your barbecue, or see it for what it really is, a true winner in the billions of years of evolution that produced it. You can indulge yourself with hellish dark thoughts but you can turn it round in a heartbeat and relish your good fortune in just being here. If you can do all that you're more fortunate than many, a heavenly thought in itself. Heavenly things and hellish things are all little vignettes that make up a great big kaleidoscope of life, and the one knocks the sparks off the other.