You are the Director of CERN, and one of your senior colleagues is killed in his room with a peculiar word branded on his chest. Do you:

1) inform the authorities
2) google the word branded on the dead man’s chest and then phone the first Harvard professor whose name appears in the search results
3) have a nice cup of tea?

You are the head of the Swiss Guard, responsible for the security of the Vatican during the conclave which will elect the next Pope. You receive reliable information that an explosive of unimaginable power has been hidden somewhere in the Vatican and will detonate in a few hours. Incidentally, four senior cardinals have also disappeared. Do you:
1) evacuate everyone, including the cardinals and most of the population of Rome
2) lock the cardinals into the Sistine Chapel and hope that the explosive device will be found by the Harvard professor and the cute physicist who have just turned up
3) have a nice cup of tea?

What was the fate of Copernicus?
1) executed by the church for heresy
2) died in his bed after a lifetime as a priest and senior government official in a church-run statelet
3) he had a nice cup of tea

How likely is it that a Catholic priest would be allowed to adopt a daughter?
1) if they are both interested in physics and she looks good in shorts, I can’t see why anyone would find it unusual
2) you must be joking
3) perhaps they could have a nice cup of tea together

Was Winston Churchill a Catholic? Are only cardinals eligible to be elected Pope by ballot?
1) Boring technicalities!
2) A poor excuse for research
3) I’ve put the kettle on

Who do you trust most for good information on the historical relationship between religion and science?
1) Dan Brown
2) Richard Dawkins
3) Stephen Jay Gould