There are some things in this world that we just can’t predict, prepare or plan for. Like the tornadoes that ravaged the American Midwest this weekend wreaking havoc and causing untold destruction. Or the unprecedented blow to liberalism and free speech that came when the government ordered bailiffs to remove the Occupy protesters from outside of St. Paul’s last week. Or even that a human as completely inane, so unbelievably and inherently preposterous as Boris Johnson could be given the mayoral responsibilities for one of the most influential cities in the world. For four years too, quite possibly eight if he gets reelected in the coming vote. I just can’t imagine for the life of me why? It’s like giving a half and half man-ape the ‘Let’s Go To War’ button with a banana symbol and a dollar sign on the front of it and putting him in the White House for eight years…
It’s our actions that define who we are, and our actions can often be unpredictable. As, for example, spending £1million pounds on one London bus defines Boris Johnson as a know-nothing-neanderthal who only got the job because he told Cameron that if he didn’t get it, he’d out the time they got drunk and messed around in a dormitory during their heydays at Cambridge. Just as David Attenborough didn’t become the world’s leading naturalist by sitting in his garden and attempting to mate a stray cat with a neighbor’s daughter’s guinea pig. He did it through sharing the screen with a family of African Silverbacks, orchestrating some of the most iconic wildlife footage ever conceived and not giving a shit about any of those exotic diseases like malaria, river blindness or jungle aids.
The psychological makeup of the human brain is so complex that it can make us want to do strange, often highly irrational, things. If it can make you want to hug a 500lb gorilla that could just as easily make a hat out of your spine, and spend a small fortune on a rectangle on wheels, what else could it do?
“Mystery over Mylor sponge eater.”
A whole lot of other weird shit too, apparently. So a story in the Packet says there’s a dental nurse in Mylor who’s been chowing down on cleaning products. Kerry Trebilcock, 21, claims to have munched her way through over 4,000 sponges and 100 bars of soap since she contracted a rare condition called, pica, in 2008. This is the disease that makes people crave to eat stuff like car tyres, soil and even light bulbs (probably a diluted version of what makes McDonalds seem appealing) and, I kid you not, she’s quoted as saying, “One day I will beat this and be able to have a shower or do the washing-up without feeling hungry.” At least she’s got the right attitude I suppose; all she needs is some confidence, a little self-belief and maybe a trip to a professional doctor to get her off the stuff, however Kerry did add that she still has “a one-inch square of sponge and three teaspoons of organic soap with each meal.” So whereas her addiction to soap and sponge is waning, she’s not completely clean of the habit, she’ll be the one at the Chain Locker with a pie and chips, and half-pint of fairy liquid.
