17 September 2010 (Friday) - Would You Believe It?

I overheard a conversation today in which a particularly thick looking young lady was asking what all the fuss was in the news. Who was this “pope bloke”? What does he do? When informed that the Holy Father is the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church, the dumbo thought for a few minutes before dismissing Catholicism out of hand. She didn’t agree with it because she was a Christian (!)

I went back to listening to the radio; there were one of two thickos there as well:

People who find they have fertility problems can get treatment from the National Health Service, or from licensed clinics. Sperm donors at such centres are health screened, and their samples are deep frozen for six months after donation to ensure that the donors don’t go down with various transmissible viruses in the meantime. On the other hand you can buy a random bottle of jizz off of the Internet and hope for the best.  

Equally ridiculous was a war story. During the Suez crisis a squadron of bombers took off to bomb somewhere or other. (Suez, I would imagine). Or that is most of the squadron took off. One of them didn’t because the pilot, Flying Officer Derek Kenyon made a mistake and rather than pressing the “take off” button, he pressed the “retract undercarriage” button. Air crew staff found Derek crying and cheerfully asked him if he’d pressed the wrong button. After all, it’s not supposed to be possible to retract the undercarriage until the plane is in the air. Having twatted the bomber beyond economical repair, Derek was court martial-ed and went to prison, suspected of cowardice in the face of the enemy.

 Sometimes I despair about the world we live in.