Our straight talking Lancashire lass takes a sideways look at the daily news.
Science, sex and more snow stories
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Is it me, or are we starting to blame everything and anything on our genes?
I’m overweight and I can’t shift the pounds, but it’s not cake retention, it’s 'genetics'. I kick-start every morning with a mug of Baileys on my cornflakes. It’s not rock 'n' roll, it’s hereditary alcoholism that I inherited from my Grandad’s side.
Gluttony, boozing, terrible dress sense, awful table manners, bingo addiction - you name it there’s a genome for it. And now scientists have found one for infidelity, appropriately named the ‘Love Rat’ gene (or DRD4).
People with DRD4 just can’t keep it in their pants. Like the horny monkeys of Borneo these poor individuals will hump anything behind their partner’s back, because that’s what they are programmed to do.
Justin Garcia, one of the researchers from the State University of New York tells the Daily Mail that: “Individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one night stands and acts of infidelity.” Sounds like everyone at university Fresher’s Week to me.
But science won’t let these genetically modified Casanovas off the hook. Cheating isn’t a genetic condition, it’s called being a tart.
In other science news it has been discovered that mercury pollution in the wild is turning male birds gay.
A report in Nature describes how low levels of mercury caused male-male bird pairs to shack up together, build tastefully decorated nests and start dressing sharply. They also found record numbers of these poisoned birds watching The Golden Girls DVD box set.
There are plenty of chemicals that mess with animal gender. Flushed hormones from the pill are well known to turn male fish female. My inner psycho once considered spiking a particularly nasty ex’s cup of tea with the pill to see what would happen (not much, probably moob tenderness and a strong desire for chocolate), but I refrained because there are laws against that type of thing. However, I digress…
This is the first time a pollutant has been shown to affect an animal’s sexuality. Thankfully mercury doesn’t seem to have the same effect in humans.
And talking about psychos, a crazy lady from Kent made headlines today by dialling 999 to report her snowman missing. The conversation was as follows:
Crazy Lady: “There’s been a theft from outside my house. I haven’t been out to check on him for five hours but I went outside for a fag and he’s gone.”
Operator: “Who’s gone?”
Crazy Lady: “My snowman. I thought that with it being icy and there not being anyone about, he’d be safe.”
Operator: “Was it an ornament?”
Crazy Lady: “No, a snowman, made of snow. I hade him myself.”
Operator: *Headslap*
She needn’t worry. I believe that the snowman was in fact the creation of Raymond Briggs, and he flew off to the North Pole to dance with Santa, Aled Jones and all the other snowmen.
