Opinion: Robert McNeil: The likely labs: Scientists making brainy monkeys and human steaks

My own opinion about science, while arguably entirely worthless, is on the other hand based on almost total ignorance. I do not have a scientific bent, as it were, in the same way that I do not have an engineering bent or, indeed, an anything remotely useful bent.

At school, in science I did not shine. I shouldn’t have been allowed to do it in the first place. The stupid education authorities let us choose our own major subjects at the age of 14, and so I ditched Latin and languages at which I was rather good, and opted for chemistry and physics because my mates did.

Both subjects had only tangential connections to the real world. At chemistry O grade or level or dear or whatever it was, I appear to have received no marks. The subject just didn’t show up on my results sheet.

Perhaps my paper had become lost or the same dog that regularly ate my homework had got a hold of it. I do remember the exam was multiple-choice and that, after being completely fogged by the first few questions, I decided to aim for a low but respectable mark by just ticking “e” for every answer.

Statistically, I deduced, I was bound to get at least 20 per cent, which would secure me a tolerable “E” fail. But I didn’t even get that. Maybe my paper got lost somewhere. Maybe, already taxed beyond endurance by the multiple-choice tribulations, and faced at the end of the exam with one last choice of D – Completed papers or E – Wastepaper bin, I had out of well-worn habit opted for the latter.

I suspect, rather, that I’d been disqualified, but they might have had the decency to tell me. Mind you, I never made inquiries. At the time, my heart was set on a career as an assistant storeman, and the only qualifications required for that were a full set of teeth and a certificate of clearance from the sexually transmitted diseases clinic, where I already had a loyalty card.

So I never became a scientist and I’m glad I didn’t because, frankly, they’re weird. This week, two reports scientifically proved that. The first involved making meat from human flesh. Now, I know that many of you are open-minded liberals, but I’m not and can tell you that, after giving the matter much thought, I am against cannibalism. I’d go so far as to ban it. Shove that in your liberal pipes and smoke it.

However, scientists at the Ouroboros Project in the United States have been growing steaks cultured from human cell samples. Fortunately, no one has yet tasted the steaks – they’ve been designed for a display making the point that lab-grown meat is dodgy.

And the boffins claim that, “technically”, what they’re doing isn’t cannibalism. Nevertheless, I bring all the power and influence that this column commands to demand this project be closed down immediately, with arrests to follow.

The second report concerned German and Japanese scientists inserting human genes into monkeys’ heids. The marmosets’ brains then started growing, leading to fears that they’d soon be finishing the sudoku before we do.

Leading worriers compared the situation to Planet of the Apes, a film series in which genetically modified primates start acting Billy Big Baws and bossing us aboot.

This’ll never do. The Age of Religion was bad enough, with folk getting burnt and stuff. But the Age of Science is proving just as bad. Someone needs to take command of this situation and, if you’re wimping out, then I’ll have to issue a wider appeal.

Time to the end the Age of Science and usher in the Age of Happy Ignorance, where your multiple choice options are: (a) plutonium (b) oxygen (c) the baby Jesus (d) ear wax or (e) I dinnae ken.

Noises off off

ALL together now: “No singing, cha-cha-cha! No singing, cha-cha-cha!” News that football fans in yonder England might be banned from shouting, chanting and singing when allowed to return will have been welcomed by all players.

When I starred for Leith Walk Primary, I hated these idiots who shouted advice (“Get off!”) from the sidelines. Hands on hips, I’d shout back: “Will you please be quiet? I’m trying to concentrate!”

Watching crowd-free matches on telly has been unbearable as we hear the guttural shouts of club coaches and staff whenever a player gets the ball: “Pass it!” “Head it!” “Run jolly swiftly!”

It’s like these ridiculous reporters at press conferences, or in street mobs, who keep shouting inane activist questions even after the victim or minister has departed the scene.

If you’re not walking the walk or dribbling the dribble, then stop shouting shampoo and chanting the cha-cha’s.

Nut jobs have new vacancies

REQUIREMENTS for job applicants are out of control. In happier times (1957-74), you could walk into any job just by promising to wear clean pants and not steal the petty cash.

Recently, when I considered reviving my garden labourer career, I found they wanted separate Scotvec qualifications in leaf-sweeping, weeding and shovelling, plus a doctorate in grass-mowing.

Meanwhile, it turned out I was over-qualified for any job with the Scottish Government. Apparently, the only jobs available to me were Chief Scientist and First Minister, and the latter was already taken by some politically correct burd.

This week, an advert for a nanny aroused controversy when the putative employers wanted (no kidding): a BA degree; multi-lingual in English, Spanish and Portugese; health and safety awareness; computer experience; a car; cooking ability; arts involvement; sports activity; pets empathy.

As well as the usual nanny tasks, there would also be the laundry, shopping, tutoring and “errands”. Oh, and the hours were flexible. And the pay was keek.

It’s time we proles started issuing demands to prospective employers: pay up, shut up, and go down the shops to get me a steak bake.

Out of my head

ONE thing I worry about as I get older, after knees and poverty, is that I’ll blurt things out that I habitually think inside my wotsname. Head.

Thus, I’ll be at an exercise class, should such things resume, and the teacher says: “Yoga is a system that clears your mind and makes your joints more flexible.” And I’ll blurt out: “Is it, aye?” Or worse still: “Pish.”

In the supermarket, I’ll see one of these weird men without any hair and start chanting, as I always do in my head: “Baldie! Baldie! Baldie!”

You could get poked in the eye for that. Covid hasn’t helped. Without company, I talk to myself a lot more, perhaps doing DIY outside and erupting: “Why do you hate me so much, God? Why did you make me so hopeless at everything? Oh hello, postie.”

I’m usually the only one at the village gym now and, recently, toiling on the crosstrainer, caught myself declaring out loud: “F*** this!”

I hate to say it but civilisation is already fraying at the seams, and it’ll only get worse if we all start saying what we think.

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