Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Nato annuled after delegate swallows treaty.

I feel a need to break my self imposed exile from this journal in order to reach out to my adoring audience tonight. I am sure I will find some succour here.


Firstly, Mrs S and two of our friends began discussing pottery, ornaments, flat pack homes and other such nonsense until I was driven, muttering “Kaliyuga, Kaliyuga” to consult the DellFick oracle in the corner of the room. I can only attribute my poor choice of information source to the late hour. I could pretend that what I was seeking was proof that one only had to search for seven seconds to find some true moron spouting much more poisonous guff than the decoration obsessed trio mentioned above. The truth is more mundane, alas. I simply found the news at the BBC too boring and trickled over to the Torygraph. 


WTFFF as young people would say, were they as capable of the degree of astonishment that I experienced over there.


At least the Daily Mail have some sense of proportion. The slow and miserable death we will suffer from whatever made up story appears on their front page always has the benefit of being slow. The Torygraph, who appear to have hired the headline writer from “The Day Today”, are much more positive.



“Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth”.


They shriek. They go on:


“Experts said the wave of supercharged gas will likely reach the Earth on Tuesday, when it will buffet the natural magnetic shield protecting Earth.”


Buffet? All you can eat for £5.95 no doubt.


Read the article yourselves, I can’t even be bothered to provide a link. It reads like the wailing of the prophet Jeremiah on the morning he poured curdled milk on the last of his Cocopops. 


Reading between the lines, what is likely to happen is that round about Tuesday, or it could be next Michaelmas but three, a lady in Mogadishu is likely to find her afternoon play on Radio 4 slightly more difficult to hear, and a chap in Norfolk is going to feel a tad warm. Or the planet could be wiped out by some giant magnetic storm. I will let you know which, if you miss it.


More implausible still is the other “science” story I found. They have found it necessary to devote some space to the incoherent jabbering of Nikodem Poplawski, of Indiana University, Bloomington. I must warn you that what follows will seem strangely familiar to any of you unfortunate enough to have experimented in your youth with hallucinogenic drugs. Cannabis and d-lsyergic acid diethylamide are two such substances in that category. You may recall propped up against a wall (if you were luckly) next to some callow slob from Barnsley who kept you awake and confused by expounding the profound realisation that had revealed itself to him during his ingestion of said narcotics. If you were really stoned, you may have found his theory interesting or even believable. You may have even been the tripe perpetrator yourself. If so, you probably don’t remember. 


Doc Pop,  or “Nutty Nik” as he is known on campus, offered one of the following insights. Can you guess which one?


A) “Maybe Nicholas Soames is the New Messiah, come to lead us to a land of eternal orgasm”, he told The Watchtower.


B) "Maybe the huge black holes at the centre of the Milky Way and other galaxies are bridges to different universes," he told New Scientist.


C) “Maybe broccoli has an IQ beyond the measure of our current tests”, he told the Theresa May edition of Penthouse.


D) “Maybe I forgot to take my tablets this morning”, he told the Bloomington Sheriff’s Department.


I can do little but copy from the Torygraph. I am at a loss as how I can embellish it. Here is a lily so pre-gilded that it positively shines like fifty thousand suns.


He says instead of matter reaching infinite density in a black hole called "singularities" in Einstein's theory of relativity - the behaviour of the space-time acts more like a spring being compressed with matter rebounding and expanding continuously.
Dr Poplawski explains that this "bounce-back" effect is caused by the torsion of space-time having a repulsive force against the gargantuan strength of gravity in a black hole.
Dr Poplawski also claims that this recoiling effect could be what has led to our expanding universe that we observe today and could explain why our universe is flat, homogeneous and isotropic without needing cosmic inflation.


Here comes a really good bit. No, honest, it is good. You will love it. You may experience quasi-orgasm. 


It is hard to see how we could test whether or not Dr Poplawski's theory is correct; the force of gravity in black holes is such that nothing can escape, so no information about what is going on inside one can ever reach us.


Yes, there you have it. Some chump, and we can only guess what nonsense his wife was spouting to cause him to toddle down this particular avenue, has added to the already overloaded truck of scientific speculation with a theory as useless as the gibberish issuing from the gob of a semi-comatose hippy, and been reported in the national press. 


FFS.


To be fair, though, his theory, if proved to be valid, would explain the oscillation of neutrinos. That particular conundrum has deprived me of many hours of sleep over the years. 


I am going to bed.

10 comments:

Tim F said...

Reminds me of the Douglas Adams tale about the two mighty powers who were in the midst of peace talks, when a stray comment by a human slipped through a temporal loophole and provoked a terrible war. Once they realised where the remark had originated, they teamed up and launched an invasion of Earth, but due to a miscalculation of scale, their combined battle fleet was eaten by a small dog.

Dave said...

Sadly, I read the Telegraph on-line yesterday, so have just wasted five minutes reading it all again in your post.

I have also read all Mr Adams' oeuvre, so wasted another precious minute perusing Mr Footman's comment.

Good thing I have nothing more important to do today, while I wait for the sun to fry the washing I've just put on the line.

Adam said...

I have also read the complete HHG2TG series, and even started on one of the Dirk Gently books but never got around to finishing it. THAT'S how big of a fan I am.

Rog said...

Poplawski is so obviously a made-up name you have given yourself blood pressure issues over nothing Vicus.... you semi-comotose old hippy you.

Vicus Scurra said...

Tim. Douglas Adams lacked the imaginative flair of Torygraph journalists.
Dave. Your wasted life. A lesson for all of us.
Adam. You should never finish anything before you reach the age of 30.
Rol. I don't believe your name either.

Richard said...

Anyone who lives in Crewe will be able to tell him his theories are nonsense. What's all that gravity and time bollocks?

bruiser and bowie said...

oh you have been missed!

Rol said...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for an extinction event... but Tuesday's 2/3rds done and no sign of it yet. You big tease!

Zig said...

bugger it's wednesday and I missed it!

Colin Davey said...

I was OK with this until "The Theresa May Edition of Penthouse". Then I made a little sound which nobody noticed.