Giants and pygmies

Is it only me...but some people are too clever for their own good.

I have in past few days learnt that at one venerable academic institution in this country researchers have come to the conclusion that caterpillars are more likely to vomit when alone. This is earth shattering news and no doubt will have significant consequences for those charged with caring for the health and welfare of caterpillars who will now need to provide dark places well away from other caterpillars where they can go to throw up.

I would love to know whether the researchers found any correlation between incidences of projectile vomiting in this caterpillar community and the consumption of lagers and a doner.

This research made me start to wonder what other research was being undertaken in this country to advance human civilisation and knowledge. And so I did a wee bit research myself, at my own expense naturally.

For instance you will be delighted to know that a man with a lot of letters after his name was paid to come up with the perfect formula for toast, identifying with immense academic rigour the optimum temperature for the bread and the butter to maximise taste. My morning toast has tasted so much better now I know that.

And mankind made a huge leap forward when it paid students to test the theory that if you have infinite time and enough monkeys and typewriters you would eventually come up with a Shakespeare play. To test this a single computer was placed in a monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo to monitor the literary output of six primates. After one month the flaws in the theory were proved when it was revealed that the primates had destroyed the machine, used it as a lavatory, and mostly typed the letter "s". I suppose it beats working for a living.

And you will no doubt be pleased to learn that a research paper published in the very popular ‘Evolution and Human Behaviour’ magazine, I think it’s a bit like Hello! for egg heads, has revealed that lap dancers get higher tips when ovulating. I am not sure how the findings from this research can be put to good and practical use, except by lap dancers though even they may struggle but I am willing to bet that the all male research team mightily enjoyed their field work.

Now maybe it’s only me but surely there are far more important, useful and relevant things for our brightest and best academic minds to study.

I know Isaac Newton pointed out that we are mere pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants but I don’t think he was thinking about better understanding the throwing up habits of caterpillars or the ovulating lapdancers when he said this.

I am sure that out there will be some egg head garlanded cum laude with PhDs and Fellowships and the like who will be able to defend such taxpayer funded largesse but in this day and age when as a nation we are struggling financially and economically I would really love to hear the defence and justification for paying these geeks to find out the best way to make a cheese sandwich. Have these people no shame?

I think it might be time for us to collect such idiocies from around the world to fuel our indignation.

Have a great week. And I am now considering applying for a research grant to investigate what makes a great week and whether or not humans and fruit flies think a week is great for the same reasons.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.