Listen / Read
It’s not going to be very long at all before I run out of expletives to splice into Atkins’ name. I’ll just have to start cycling them round, much like the Today programme does with Thought for the Day speakers. Today Anne Atkins went for the whole thank-God-for-science shitnugget. You’re intelligent enough to see such nob-logic for what it is, so let me avoid bleeding from my fingertips and type about something that doesn’t make want to vomit out of my earholes.
One of my favourite all-time television characters is Homicide: Life on the Street’s Detective Frank Pembleton, played by Andre Braugher. In season 5 his marriage starts to suffer under the strain of his passion for his work and his struggle to recover from a stroke. During marriage counselling his wife puts it to him that God got him through his stroke. “No,” he says, “God, as usual, was in the next county making hurricanes and hunchbacked babies!”
That feels better. I was waiting for an opportunity to shoehorn Pembleton into an entry, and it’s only fair considering Anne Atkins and her fellow speakers like very much to shoehorn God into science every opportunity they get. Pembleton is something like my god at the moment, as I work my way through the Homicide boxsets. Braugher later went on to star as Doctor Ben Gideon in Gideon’s Crossing, written and produced by Paul Attanasio. Gideon was an unorthodox oncologist with a unique bedside manner. ABC cancelled it after one season, the bastards. But I suppose I should consider the big picture. Attanasio brought his maverick medical doctor concept to life a few years later, and now we have television’s pithiest sceptic:
If you’re not a fan already, the other guy’s a Mormon. I hope I’m preaching to the converted here, but if you haven’t made House a priority in life then I must insist that you do. In fact, go do it, stop reading this blog right now.
Well, not “right now” obviously, because I’ve not yet told you that House is on, like, all the freaking time on Channel Five, Five US and Hallmark. And Five US+1 and Hallmark+1, just in case you want to immediately re-watch the episode you just finished watching. And you will. I recommend inviting a like-minded friend around so you can both sit there, watching House, taking turns saying “I fucking love House” and “House is fucking awesome” whilst keeping a count of the number of times ‘lupus’ is mentioned. Seriously, it’s an enriching way to spend your time on Earth.
And to think I’d actually intended to write this entry all about the pitfalls of nanotechnology by exploring the relentless threat posed by the Replicators in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Who knew I’d manage to find another way to get my geek on.
(Please, no more Anne Atkins for a long while, please…)