Listen / Read
Being as she writes for the Daily Mail, Ann Atkins has no trouble taking what’s written in its permanently nowtraged pages as the gospel truth. And just like her favouritest book ever, the Daily Mail is full of fantastical exaggerations and the delusional imaginings of idiotic nobheads.
Atkins says:
The film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has now been realised in the latest breakthrough, with drugs that can help you shed distressing memories.
Which is complete bollocks, of course. The drugs used in the small study in Amsterdam don’t help people shed memories at all. They’re not a breakthrough, they’re bloody beta-blockers for fuck’s sake. They might - might – inhibit the brain’s ability to attach emotions to experiences, but Professor Neil Burgess from the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said that “All they’ve shown so far is the increased ability to startle someone if they are feeling a bit anxious is reduced.” This isn’t pharmaceutical amnesia we’re talking about here. It’s not even a widely overrated Jim Carey movie.
The NHS have already called bullshit on the Daily Mail article: Pill to erase bad memories: ethical furore over drugs that ‘threaten human identity’. But of course Ann Atkins loves an ethical faux-furore when she thinks she sees one, so we get to listen to her turn a very small, very over-simplified study into a contrived rambling about the nature of humanity. Oh, and Jesus. She was enjoying the sound of her own voice so much, she nearly forgot to mention him. Perhaps she’s on beta-blockers?
Or maybe that’s just everyone who has to listen to her.