Mrs Gee and I were pushing the trolley round Morrisons in Cromer this lunchtime when we heard the following announcement over the tannoy: “This is a customer service announcement,” it said,
- If there is a Francis Crick in the store, would they please make themselves known to the customer services desk?
I swear I’m not making it up.
Look, Jim, spaghetti’s on special offer this week!
Yes, Francis, it’s a BOGOF.
Isn’t he the chap working with Lederberg?
No, but it’s what Rosie told me when I tried to put my hand up her skirt…
Have you seen or heard of any famous scientists in your supermarket? Einstein, perhaps, pausing meditatively over the fish counter? Newton, rapt in thought in homewares? Harry Kroto having a eureka moment in front of a display of barbecue briquettes? Or even our very own Charles Darwin mulling over seed varieties in the gardening aisle …?
‘Pea Onward’, Mr Darwin?
You first, Mr Stein.
Richard Smalley plays in my husband’s footie team.
I’m told Cambridge Sainsbury’s on a Saturday morning is a great place to starspot. Not sure which aisle.
Come to think of it, my elder daughter (she of the unicycling girrafes) was born in Hammersmith Hospital. I did see Professor Lord Sir Robert Winston nip into the hospital shop for a Mars bar. Back then he was just plain ‘Bob’, of course.
We see Jaqueline Wilson all the time in Kingston. That’s about all you can say about Kingston, really.
I once bumped into Gabriel Dovewr in Saisburys in Cambridge. Does that count?
If you mean Dover, I’d suggest probably not, unless he’s a Lord and a Sir as well as a Prof. Or has some other claim to celebrity fame, such as slapping someone in the face with a wet fish.
By the way, part 2 of the final Dr Who was a bit of a let-down after all that discussion last week, I thought.
Yes, Gabriel Dover it was. And Dr Who it wasn’t. But what did you expect? The Daleks were wiped out, and Dr Who won, and he’s alone again, ah me, in the tardis. Yawn. Snooze. You didn’t even have to watch it to know that.
I think what irritates me about Dr Who is the use of a device (literary, rather than technological) which in any other context would be laughed off stage. In just about every episode, the Doctor and his pals find themselves in a completely irredeemable fix, when the Doctor rolls his eyes, smiles mischievously, and says something like “Aha! The Trintragulan Flux Manipulator! Why didn’t I think of it before?” Then he’ll get out his sonic screwdriver, the Daleks’ heads will explode, and with one bound (Captain) Jack is free.
I shall be much too modest to point out that I was nearly right in my #1 prediction that the Doctor would regenerate as himself.
Yes, that finale had more dei ex machina than you could shake a stick at. The worst was arguably the way they survived at Torchwood. ‘Oh, yes Tosh must have put in this (impossibly high tech) defence she mentioned before she died.’ How convenient.
Although at first sight the main conclusion where Donna manages to control/blow up all the daleks with a control panel that just happens to be right in front of the Tardis seems very forced, to be fair, all that was supposed to have been engineered by the loony Dalek Kahn to finish off his race, so arguably that almost made sense.