TCM in 2009

I knew that all that was required to provide the impetus for the start for my blogging year was for someone to put 50p in and twiddle with the buttons. Who better, I ask entirely rhetorically, than the science pages of our leading newspapers.

Over at the Torygraph, space is given to an oddly named gentleman, Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics from Huddersfield University. Yes, I could go off on an enormous tangent about the likelihood of a seat of learning at said town, but not now. The Torygraph let us know that Huddersfield is in West Yorkshire. Where it has been for some time. It has not moved. Later in the article, however, Mr Till, no doubt alarmed at being associated with Huddersfield, now claims to come from York, North Yorkshire. The Torygraph have taken (yes, I know I haven’t started to describe what the article was about, you great steaming twassock, just be patient) to telling us, USA style, which county the towns are in. York, heavens be praised, is in Yorkshire, exactly where God intended it to be.
Anyway, Silly Tilly is proposing the theory that Stonehenge was a concert venue. Go on, go and read it for yourself if you don’t believe me. It could have been, couldn’t it? Purpose built for a Cliff Richard concert. The acoustics may have been very good until some prize pillock put all those fucking rocks there. Imagine traipsing out to Wiltshire on a wet Wednesay in October on prehistoric transport to hear the Bee Gees, and then getting stuck behind a pillar. (I know that most of us would prefer to hide behind anything rather than look at those talentless tossers, but we would not be part of the typical audience would we? Do keep up.)
Let me make this very clear. I know that I have said it before, but evidently not everyone was listening. Stonehenge is a pile of ugly rocks. The only possible purpose for it is as a practical joke by our ancient forefathers, in the same way that we will leave recordings of Jeremy Clarkson for future generations. It is a hideous and boring eyesore, almost as hideous and boring as the twerps who go and look at it. I wish they would paint it luminous pink and be done with it.

The next amazing article, also from the Torygraph, is headed “Teenagers who skip breakfast are more likely to have sex”. Well, that does not seem to be worthy of a great deal of attention. Obviously there is only so much time in the day, and one has to make economies somewhere in order to fit in everything (missus). I dare say that I, should the occasion every arise, on being required to indulge in copulation, would find it easier to forego my toast and tahini than miss the finals of Celebrity Yak Gelding on ITV3. Indeed, if you are in need of sacrificing some part of your day to make way for an activity, then you may as well give up one that occurs early in the day, because then you know that you have saved that time and not have the problem nagging you throughout the day. In any case, cocopops and coitus do not, I would imagine, go together well. If you know differently, then please keep that information to yourself.

The most ridiculous and propagandist article to be found on the Torygraph science pages is most distressing. Are you sitting down, this may offend. Spanish scientists claim that Neanderthal man was ginger. Yes indeed. Bastards. Let me defend my ginger cousins (I use this noun figuratively, although I do have many ginger cousins. Ginger is the least of their problems when it comes to physical peculiarities. I also have/had a tendency towards that hair colour, though not as pronounced as many of my relations. It is not, however, because of this kinship that I speak out for carrot tops, but simply to stop mindless prejudice) by drawing your attention to the word “Spanish” near the beginning of this paragraph. Some blackhaired Bernardo from Bilbao has concocted some quasi-scientific mumbo-jumbo to make our extinct relatives appear bad, simply because one of his mates made fun of his appearance. Whatever happened to scientific integrity? And, if you go over to the appropriate page in the Torygraph, please do not come back here and say that the representation there looks like Dave, because it doesn’t, and it would be cruel to say so even if it did, which it does not, OK?

I think that is enough mumbo jumbo for now. I shall not rest until the ravings of these knuckle-dragging, neo-stupid nincompoops cease to be thrust in our faces everytime we seek to enquire about the state of modern knowledge.

If they do not stop, I may be forced to reveal the name of my first form chemistry teacher. No one with that name would think about entering the teaching profession these days. I am loathe to expose her, but this is an important battle that we are fighting.