Darrel's Column

The long and short of Evolution

Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:50:04 +0100

My friend Tony has a problem. He likes this girl, see, and call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think it can work. Not in this society. They’re too different, and I don’t mean their interests or levels of education. I mean on a more biological level. Tony calls me a bigot but I don’t care. “Your kind doesn’t belong with her kind,” I told him just recently. “It’s a crime against nature.” “It’s happening more and more these days,” he said. “I dream of a future ...

The World’s Best-ish

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:47:36 +0100

“I don’t want to be the best,” said Porky Withers, ripping open a plastic packet of pink Vienna sausages with his teeth. “I want to be the best of the best.” “Then you do want to be the best.”“No, better than that.”“But the best is the guy better than everyone else. ‘Best of the best’ is kind of a meaningless statement, because anyone you’re better than can’t be the best.”“Okay, okay, fine,” said Porky Withers. “Then I just want to be the best.”...

Blue Smarties! Since When?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:45:13 +0100

Something very strange happened the other day, as I was receiving a handful of Smarties from a neighbourhood 12-year-old I’d caught trying to steal a cat. The handful just didn’t look right. “When did they start making blue Smarties?” I wondered aloud.“They’ve always made blue Smarties,” said the kid, but if there’s one thing I know about kids, it’s that they lie. They also break things, don’t meet deadlines, steal cats and eat ice cream without getting fat, but mainly they li...

Move over, Corrie

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:21:12 +0100

My buddy Yash has a strategy for fixing the mental frailties of the South African cricket team.“We already have a strategy,” I told him. “The strategy is we keep on calling them chokers and reminding them that they always choke, and we keep doing it until they stop choking.”“But isn’t that the same strategy the Australians used against us, except they did it to make sure we did keep choking?”“So?”“So if you want a certain result, why would you continue doing something that has...