Recently, I read about a group of Italian scientists who have been incarcerated for misreading signs of a massive earthquake.
It would appear that when tremors started occurring throughout a mountainous zone of that great country, nervous neighbours started to send missives to the "know-it-all" group of large-brained intellectuals on what to do. Word arrived back that really they might better spend their time consuming pasta and drinking wine, good advice at any time, it was felt.
Of course, as we all know, earthquakes did arrive with great loss of life and property, spreading misery throughout the land.
I am not sure what triggered the subsequent fallout for the embarrassed scientists. Maybe it was the sight already burned into the hearts and minds of the Italian people, that of a mammoth ship lying on its side off their coast because of someone in charge who should have known better, but it was dire. The academics were pulled from their Fiats and Ferraris, shouting that they had not had lunch yet, before being handcuffed amongst shouting paparazzi. There was a very public trial with yet more shouting, and they were found guilty and given a healthy sentence of six years.
Needless to say, this series of events has sent a shiver down the collective spine of the academic world.
I can recall my own experiences with nose-stretchers. For instance, the nurse at my school when I was a jammy-faced boy of 14 gave me a doozy. After compulsory sports one afternoon, I approached her with my newfound problem, that of the largest pimple in Christendom, which had recently taken up residence between my eyes.
It was so vast that I was continuously making myself cross-eyed trying to examine the monster. Unkindly, she laughed.
Miss Odd, for that was the RN's name, was a dreadful woman who truly disliked little boys, even me. My immediate problem was that there loomed a midterm school dance at which I hoped to press up against Prudence, a girl who did not actually gag in my arms, which was rare.
When the frightful nurse grew bored squeezing my eyebrows, which only appeared to highlight the infected area, she announced that I was not to worry as I would never have another pimple after the age of 18 - a monumental lie, for something large appeared on my chin during my wedding ceremony and I was almost 30.
My mother was a gentle woman and very good to me, but she seemed to live in a parallel universe. Once when she and Father were in New York, they were robbed in their hotel room. After my father handed over his money to the masked brigand, Mother helpfully reminded her husband that he had more in his jacket pocket. I don't think he ever forgave her.
But the point is, she once told me that I would grow into my nose, which I obviously have not done as I am still referred to as the Horn - and so another ungodly lie.
However, a certain Mr. Hannah, who was my math teacher in the Upper Fifth, told me something that was not a lie, but I wish it had been. He was a man who was allergic to chalk dust and therefore was sneezing a great deal of the time.
This sent me into paroxysms of giggles, which the poor man found deeply unfair. On one occasion, he wearily turned to me as I grinned after one of his chalky blasts: "Smythe-Brown, you will no doubt find one day that life is not a bowl of cherries," and he was right.
As those scientists in Italy frown in their cells, I wonder if the same might happen in the coming years to the local scientists who claim that pouring billions of litres of untreated sewage into the ocean yearly is a jolly good idea. Time will tell.
[email protected] Twitter @TheYYJMajor
