Clarification with Reference To Previous Post

My previous post included a prose piece inspired by my 70th birthday, written by my son. Thus, giving validity to the Latin tag: 'Chippus Blockus Maximumus.' My Latin, of course, was perfected during my five-year sentence at Tipton Secondary Modern, the premier scholastic institution of the fair town of Tipton. My Alma Mata, educated Tipton's most illustrious citizens and inmates. This includes Lugless Dougless, he of truncated pinna fame, ferret tamer to the stars and protagonist in a previous post entitled, 'The Ballard of Lugless Dougless'. Also, the esteemed Prof. Ipod Mugumbo, PhD (failed), spent his informative years ensconced in the notorious Remedial Class. As you will no doubt recall, the Prof is famed as being the only pigmented albino in existence.

Mention of my old school brings me neatly to the heart of today's blog. I have had various emails from folk requesting clarification regarding my son's not-so-cryptic allusion to a Historical Thermal Application to a scholastic establishment in his prose piece published in my previous post. Several years ago, I posted regarding a very unfortunate event that occurred in 1972. Sadly, my old school was engulfed in a conflagration just a week after my graduation. Arson was suspected, however, although a thorough investigation was undertaken by Inspector Mugumbo of the 'Burny Stuff Squad', the miscreant (for it is he) was never brought to justice. I'm not sure whether there is a statute of limitations for this form of criminal activity. After 54 years, I suspect the perpetrator is long gone from the area. 

For the purpose of elucidation and edification of my readers who are recent followers of the blog, I have decided to reprise the post in its entirety. Mayhap, it could bestir the memory of some old codger who was in the Tipton area at the time. A new lead might materialise, and consequently, a 'Cold Case Review' might be undertaken. Unfortunately, Inspector Mugumbo is no longer with us. Not long after the event to be described, the Inspector was burnt to death during his demonstration of a practical fire safety protocol.

So, after this rather protracted introduction, here is the post.      

 

It was a shit school- but burnt well

I was rummaging through some old documents the other day when I found this newspaper clipping betwixt the pages of an old book, entitled: 'The Art of the Incendiary'. The news article concerned the tragic conflagration which engulfed my Alma Mater the day after I graduated.

The police came knocking on my door a few days later with all sorts of questions. And of course I had an alibi. On the morn of the fire I was in the company of fellow ex Tipton school pupil, Sally Ault. As I distinctly recall we were involved in extra curricula activities in my unkempt bedroom. Sally's testimony, bless her heart, was unshakable and remarkably consistent. 

The evidence against me was circumstantial at best. And just because I'd had my shoulder length blond locks sheared on the afternoon of the incident proved nothing. The Inspector was unrelenting in his questioning and hung in there like a ferret clinging to a rabbit's neck. Confess, confess! Tis true the suspicious youth seen hanging about at the time matched my description exactly, as several witnesses were willing to attest, but I'm a great believer in doppelgangers and parallel universes and such. Wisely the witnesses had an epiphany and recanted. On second thoughts the youth's hair looked more mousy brown than golden hued. This ruled me out in a thrice. No way it could be me as I had just washed my golden locks which bedazzled in the sun and bathed the scene in an ethereal glow as if a cleansing H bomb had gone off in Tipton High Street. Here is a gratuitous tip: never use cheap shampoo or conditioner- false economy and I should know. Have I digressed? Anyway, without witnesses or a confession the poor Inspector was bereft of a conviction. No court in the land would have convicted on the evidence to hand and rightly so. It is better for ten guilty men to go free than one innocent man to be unjustly convicted. Isn't our justice system wonderful? The arsonistically (not a real word) inclined miscreant was never caught and probably lurks unrepentant within our very midst waiting for an opportunity to assuage a hunger which never abates.     

Is there a statute of limitation on this sort of thing? I suspect after 44 years it would be very difficult to identify the perpetrator and gain a conviction. Best to let it go then, eh Inspector?



 

Sally on the day of our graduation- I wonder what she is doing now?

  

  

Ode to Flaxen

 

This post is a little different to my 'normal' stuff.

 It was my birthday a couple of months ago, when I reached the grand, nay majestic age of 70. To celebrate this momentous occasion, I received absolutely nothing from family or friend. Before you feel sorry for me, let me explain: this lack of pressies is by design. Our family decided several years ago that adults wouldn't send or receive material goods for our birthdays. Instead, we would reserve the transfer of material or monetary worth to the grandchildren. This sensible and practical resolution also extends to a very popular mid-winter festival. This birthday, however, my son sent, unbidden, a gift beyond tangible or monetary worth. I received a prose piece that, lending toward doggerel, provided cutting insight into my muddled, often contradictory psyche. Regardless, I was impressed. I've kept the original punctuation, or lack of it, style and formatting as it adds to the quirky, jarring nature of the piece.

Dat's my boy

In his own words, take it away, FS junior:

Ode to Flaxen

O Flaxen 

Septuagenarian of stable phenotype,

Mildly creaking joints,

Genome intact (largely).

The world does not merely mark your seventieth year —

It sequences it.

You, who beheld the double helix

Spiralling like divine fusilli,

And whispered,

“Yes. Let’s fiddle with that.”

Retired geneticist.

Chromosomal conjurer.

Splicer of destiny.

A mind formidable,

A tongue incorrigible.

In laboratories, sterile and humming

You spoke truths so scientifically precise

And so socially catastrophic

That colleagues lowered their goggles

As though shielding themselves from fallout.

Brilliant?

Indisputably.

Mad?

With supporting data.

Did the lab HR maintain a dedicated folder?

Bound. Indexed. Cross-referenced.

O tireless empiricist.

There was that moment —

Purely academic.

Entirely professional.

For science —

When you placed your own swimmers beneath the microscope

And peered into the wriggling abyss.

And there they were:

Ambitious.

Unusual.

Not entirely terrestrial.

Some mutated.

Some experimental.

One possibly poorly constructing a key box.

And thus arises the noble inquiry:

Am I your son?

The phenotype suggests it.

The facial deformities confirm it.

Yet until peer-reviewed and double-blinded,

The conclusion remains tantalisingly provisional.

O Founder of the Fartorium.

To lesser men: a simple office.

To you: an acoustically advantageous sanctum.

You entered with gravity.

You departed with lightness.

Some men leave reports.

You left resonance.

Some men leave legacies.

You adjusted atmospheres.

And now —

The Incident.

Circa 1972.

Let the record blaze — entirely fiction.

Yet rumours drift like smoke across time.

Whispers curl along memory’s rafters.

Tipton Secondary Modern.

No evidence.

No photographs.

Only the faint grin of a boy

Who understood thermodynamics

Slightly too early.

If flame ever danced,

It was surely pedagogy.

A misunderstood chemistry lesson.

An architectural re-imagining.

Spontaneous enthusiasm for oxidation.

The building stands.

History smoulders politely.

Outside laboratories and hypothetical combustion —

Beer.

Not merely consumed — annexed.

Acquired in strategic volume.

Installed reverently into The Beer Fridge of Doom,

A humming shrine of chilled abundance.

You drink with academic diligence.

Field research.

Comparative analysis.

Seven pints an hour?

A working hypothesis.

Traditional archery —

For why propel a projectile

Unless it be as our ancestors intended:

Wooden.

Taut.

And capable of piercing a Frenchman at 100 yards.

Modern bows are for the undecided.

You prefer tension you can hear,

History you can feel in the shoulder,

Danger you can politely ignore.

And the obsessions —

O the obsessions.

They do not arrive gently.

They descend.

Watches.

Knives.

Puzzles.

Fidget toys.

You do not simply become interested.

You become possessed —

Gloriously, unhealthily immersed —

Until mastery is achieved

Or boredom strikes like a gavel.

And then —

Abruptly —

You move on.

The previous passion, fully conquered,

Is placed gently into a drawer.

Somewhere in this house

There exists a graveyard of former fixations —

Perfectly organised.

Meticulously understood.

Abandoned without ceremony.

The drawer does not tremble.

It waits.

At seventy, O Flaxen,

You remain gloriously eccentric.

Curious.

Fearless.

Unconventional.

Occasionally best observed from a prudent radius.

And adored.

So stand, O probable father.

Geneticist.

Workplace wildcard.

Atmospheric innovator.

Archer of ancient inclinations.

Beer connoisseur.

Ferret confederate.

Alleged — yet legally unproven — enthusiast of Tipton thermodynamics.

Seventy years sequenced.

Still sharp.

Still strange.

Still muttering “for science” before doing something concerning.

May your arrows fly true,

Your beer remain cold,

Your puzzles capitulate,

Your microscopes reveal nothing too alarming,

And may Tipton Secondary Modern

Continue to stand —

In spirit.

Happy 70th, Dad.

Human Evolution: Introductory Commentary and Shit

Her Major is in: Exotic Dancing as related to extracting the maximum amount of money from sad, lonely old men. I'm sure she will do extremely well in her degree, especially in the practical and theoretical elements. This is guaranteed, as her supervisor is devoid of accepted moral precepts and is wretchedly amoral (surely a redundancy? ). Supervisor: Dr F. Saxon 

Like many biologists, I assumed that human evolution was now defunct. And this had become the case since we had arrived at a sedentary lifestyle following the 'Agricultural Revolution'. My assumption was that the loss of adaptive pressures resulted in 'Evolutionary Stasis'. We no longer had to wander around the savannah/tropical rainforest/temperate woodland/etc in lioncloth, or buck naked to earn a living.

The hunter-gatherer existence is seen by some folk as the ideal state of man. They conjure a romantic vista of bliss in which we return to nature and live in harmony with Mother Earth. This may sound compelling as they sit at Starbucks, sipping a double crappuccino with extra cream. However, the reality was apparently a never-ending cycle/circle of marginal survival. Adaptive pressures favoured a physique slimmed to the bone during hunting season. Hunting was gruelling work requiring bursts of raw speed to drag down injured prey. To survive winter, when the pickings were sparse, Mother Nature beloved those who could store fat efficiently to endure long, involuntary fasts; mayhap today, too efficiently. Mother Nature bestowed blessings on the strong and fleet of foot, and metabolically efficient. Women cherished and lent their bodies to the best hunters for vigorous and unrelenting carnal lust - men who could sire fine sons fit to live and thrive in a raw, atavistic arena that is LIFE.

Even so, life was short and brutish. No modern anodyne to cure their ills. Most women would eventually die in childbirth. A wound or a minor infection that could be cleared up today with antibiotics would result in death or permanent disability. This hard, rigid subsistence demanded full participation by members. There may be truth in the story that the Eskimo women of old, when old, could no longer soften leather with their teeth due to years of diligent attrition. Worn to the bone, aged teeth had served/survived their burden. These women, mayhap no older than 35, would accept their final lot and, with impending doom, wander off into the white-tippexed landscape and take the last trudge unto eternity. Frankly, I think Captain Oates just went out for a fag and got lost. Did this happen? I would like to think so, as it fits neatly with the narrative.    

Since Darwin's radical theory that species evolved as a consequence of adaptive forces, environmental or otherwise, came forth, evidence supporting the theory has accumulated across a variety of scientific disciplines. One hundred and seventy years after the publication of Darwin's book, 'On the Origin of Species', the theory proposed by Charles Darwin has become canon in biological thought, and there is little doubt that it is the bedrock and foundation stone of all biological processes. No professional biologist, if serious in the prosecution of biological endeavour and progress, can deny the tenets of Evolution and its role in sculpting life.

My assumption about the lack of human evolution's continuation was in error. I am happy to accept and concede my mistake and ascribe the lapse to a case of Intellectual Hubris. Furthermore, there is a common misconception among those not well-versed in evolutionary theory that adaptive evolution is somehow directed toward a course of 'excellence'. Excellence is a qualitative term, and it is pertinent to ask what adaptation(s) would be expected or desired.  For instance, can we envision 'Retrogade Adaptation', in which the qualities favoured may lead to a lower overall IQ in a population? And it must be stressed that adaptation will be limited to within distinct breeding populations. Not all of humanity needs to partake, or is privileged to have access to my bestoke genetic profile. We can watch from the sidelines, thus reinforcing our ingrained and deeply held prejudices. Remember, folks, stereotypes are there for a reason. For some, having a low IQ may be seen as a positive outcome. No more pesky thinking and difficult reading, and stuff. Just sit back and collect the welfare cheque. For this group, this may be considered a step in the right direction rather than a retrogade one. By the way, retrograde is a concept in astronomy, not biology. The mere fact that they could neither spell 'retrogade' (or retrograde), nor comprehend their meanings, has no bearing or relevance at all, at least to them 

Evolution does not necessarily proceed to make a species more attractive, intelligent, or less spotty. No, evolution is concerned only with differential reproduction and death, resulting from adaptation to specific environmental pressures experienced by a population over time. And those imperatives may change with time. Is it possible that we are witnessing a divergence, a dichotomy, if you will, from the base human population? This observation, hypothetical or otherwise, could align with my hypothesis, which I will describe shortly and tentatively strive to bolster with empirical evidence. 

This work has been funded by a grant from the Tipton Institution of Difficult Shit and Stuff, under the auspices of Prof. Ipod Mugumber. I would like to thank Prof. Mugumbo and the esteemed board members of the institution for allowing me to take a sabbatical from my onerous teaching duties. Not only will this generous largesse provide sufficient funding for my essential and highly important research work, but it will also fund a research assistant hand-picked by me. I would therefore like to welcome Miss Nubile Legsakimbo to the team. Miss Legsakimbo comes with impeccable credentials, including her High School Leaving Certificate, confidently asserting, 'Most Likely To Get Knocked Up Within The Year' and an 'Ecdysiat Practitioner Certificate, Third Class' (Failed). She also comes with a recommendation from 'Ten Gilda Hilda', indigent of Amsterdam.    

My Hypothesis, which is all mine and no one else's

Caveat: This work represents preliminary, 'proof of concept' research, and if my initial findings provide strong indicators in line with the proposed tentative hypothesis, it is my intention to expand data acquisition from not only 'Aldis Tipton', but I will also mine data from 'Netto Tipton', with a possible extension into the same supermarkets within the Dudley metropolitan precinct.

Hypothesis, as put forth by Dr Flaxen Saxon: 

Denizens and folk who inhabit 'budget-friendly' supermarkets are experiencing rapid, unprecedented adaptive pressures, resulting in morphological and intellectual changes in line with evolutionary change.

Commentary on Proposed Hypothesis

Furthermore, quantitative metric measurements can be observed and recorded, and empirical data can be assessed to determine whether they are consistent with the previously stated null hypothesis. Depending on the result, a decision will be made regarding the continuance of this research project.       

Initial Contemplation Leading to Hypothesis

Look around your local supermarket, Aldi is perfect for this type of observation. What do we see? Do we see a tribe of hunter-gatherers, sleek and fit, ready to chase down a wounded gazelle? Or do we see a herd of fattened, wretched sows, of both sexes? Admittedly, modern living, with all that it brings, has saved us from the horrors that afflicted our ancestors. But that doesn't mean we must necessarily devolve into amorphous, unhealthy 'Pudding Folk'.

At the conclusion of this valuable research, my results will be presented, in monograph format, in the prestigious and estimable scientific journal: 'Tipton Journal For Advancement of Sciency Stuff and Very Hard Sums and Shit'. It is a fervent hope that my seminal and groundbreaking research will be completed before the adjudication of the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine (2027). Nuff said.

The second blog in this series will showcase the data and conclusions from this study. Watch this space, and perhaps weep.