Formula for Excess
November 19th, 2006
Recently I wrote about Nathan Efron and his insidious formula on the Beer Goggle Effect, and pondered the BBC’s infatuation with printing this kind of fluff. God help me, because I punched in a simple search into the BBC News engine, and a tide of pseudoscientific nonsense was vomited into my lap. Think I’m exaggerating?
Currently the BBC has “news articles” detailing how to make the perfect toast, what makes scary movies so scary, when to sack football managers, where to find the perfect shopping street, how to hold chopsticks, the key to good biscuit dunking, which bread is best for mopping gravy, the perfect holiday resort, the perfect beach, the perfect pint, the perfect romantic comedy, the perfect commentating voice, how to make chemistry on-screen, how to build sandcastles, both the best method of pulling crackers and how to choose a Christmas tree, therefore the perfect Christmas (not actually related), the perfect sitcom, what makes a perfect marriage, perfect pork crackling, the perfect cup of tea, how to make the perfect film, a scientific solution to pancake flipping, the most depressing day, how to make the perfect free kick, the perfect cheese sandwich, the secret of the perfect golf swing, the small matter of everlasting perfect happiness and, inevitiably, an article entitled “the formula for a perfect formula“, which, as it turns out, is an article on spurious formulas published by err… the BBC!
That’s not even starting on formulae published by other outlets, with the (Australian) Sunday Times getting in on the act with a formula for the perfect bum, and the multitiude of companies who shout this trash from their own websites – M&S with their perfect strawberries & cream ratio, as well as our own experience with Carpe Diem.
It’s really enough to make a grown man weep. Harmless fun or epidemic of trash? You decide.
Entry Filed under: General
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5 Comments
1. Neil | November 20th, 2006 at 12:45 pm
Of course, the BBC also published an article examining the phenomenon rather sceptically : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/3794419.stm
2. Neil | November 20th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Oops, didn’t notice you’d already mentioned it.
3. Nick Allen | November 20th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
You missed this one, by my good self, which I thought was rather good!
Do you get less wet if you run in the rain?
4. Frank | November 21st, 2006 at 9:19 am
Ah, but yours wasn’t selling anything! If only you’d teamed up with Gortex, perhaps you could have been featured…
5. Nick Allen | November 21st, 2006 at 4:07 pm
Agreed Frank.
The BBC magazine monitor has always taken a jokey stance / sideways look at these crap ‘marketing’ equations.
So I think the sciencepunk crit of the BBC is maybe a bit off the mark.
I did offer to be ‘equation’ critic for BBC magazine, which would have helped the dire situation – but they didn’t get back.
Maybe they were too busy preparing for Children in Need – you know: signing up 50 D list celebrities and 600 tons of baked beans for baths etc.
:-)
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