Weird Science

It was while thinking about the cracking science fiction films of that period, when society was obsessed with what technology could bring us in the future, that I remembered this piece of celluloid flotsam; a close encounters of the turd kind, if you will.

But we’re now in the future, it started a couple of years ago, and the maniacs are having their playtime. Some of them don’t understand science, some of them ignore science and some are just making such ridiculous claims that if I didn’t know better I’d say I’d fallen through a vortex into a parallel universe obeying the Laws of Sitcom.

Diet vaping.

Vaping as a replacement to balanced nutritional intake?

In a previous working life I was asked to research a new product that the managing director wished to add to the product mix. His idea was that we should go for a national rollout with ad campaigns and in-store promotions. The product was an everlasting bar of soap.

Clearly normal soap just isn’t up to the job. You use it, it diminishes and you have to keep buying a new one. What you need is a bar of soap made from stainless steel. And when I say ‘what you need’ I mean ‘the next to last thing you need’. I had to prepare a report and presentation to the board on this – and at no time crack into a fit of laughter. I am stunned to discover that despite being kicked soundly to the kerb it is currently on sale through a large online vendor at £4.99 a bar.

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” ”• Albert Einstein

Diet vaping?

The body is an amazing vessel, each cell a biochemical powerhouse with terabytes of cellular DNA information being transcribed every second. Two hundred trillion cells, each one performing millions of chemical reactions utilising the nutrients taken in through the mouth.

Fad diets are one thing, but replacing food with vapour?

If people are unable to distinguish lies from reality, if their critical faculties are so under-developed, is it OK for people to take advantage of them? Who doesn’t want a “sexy body”? I did so much that I now have fourteen of them underneath my dermis.

The body is not tricked, the body is a simple mechanism impervious to the lies the brain falls for. The body will tell you that you are damn hungry when it requires more nutrients and no vapour puffing will take that feeling away. Nicotine would diminish the hunger pangs but these things are nic-free.

Hot on the heels of diet vaping comes a new snake oil salesperson: e-liquid with added vitamins. A healthy diet needs no vitamin supplements but the vitamin supplement industry would hate you to believe that. Imagine vitamins are sandcastles imagine a coil of Kanthal is a Chieftain tank. Now apply power to the tank and head it straight for the sandcastles. Vitamins are denatured by temperature; they are smashed by heat and rendered useless for their role in the body.

People are being sold a pup, it’s like going to see Flight of the Navigator only for someone to load a reel of Howard the Duck instead. Instead of a family film to enjoy they are being made to sit back and suffer 111 minutes of utter pointlessness. I’d write more but I’m putting the final touches to a juice that will double your IQ.