Sounding Off: Research revelations

Curry, some researcher found recently, is actually an invention of the Japanese. Another found that the Scots did not invent golf. Don't these researchers have anything better to research?

Last updated: July 25, 2019 | 19:39

By Alexander Lindsay

2 MIN READ

Curry, some researcher found recently, is actually an invention of the Japanese. Another found that the Scots did not invent golf. Don't these researchers have anything better to research?

Over now to the common room at the Billy Jones University of Kookaburra Gulch, New South Wales, where Professors Grabbit and Runne are agonising over how to spend their latest research grant from the Trivial Pursuits Foundation

Grabbit: "I've got it! - Helen of Troy, The Face That Launched a Thousand Ships. We could blow that myth apart. For all we know she was as ugly as sin. And where's the proof that her beauty launched a thousand ships in the Trojan War, when her husband is supposed to have sent his fleet to rescue her from captivity?"

Runne: "Hmmm, but how do we evaluate it? How do you measure beauty?"

Grabbit: "Simple. If we assume that one Helen is the unit of beauty required to launch a thousand ships, then it follows that one Millihelen is the unit of beauty required to launch one ship."

Runne: "Brilliant, Grabbit, brilliant! But what about the methodology?"

Grabbit: "I've got that worked out too. We get the best available picture of this Helen whatshername. Then we take a sample of 1,000 healthy young men and show them the picture in turn. Now, it is an established fact that one man's meat is another man's poison. So some of these men are going to say she is at the least quite ordinary looking. Even if, for the sake of argument, 100 of them say they wouldn't launch a single ship for her, then she scores just 900 Millihelens, or for the sake of convenience, 90 Centihelens. So we've bust the myth, home and dry. QED!"

Runne: "I take my hat off to you, Grabbit. Elegant piece of deduction. And all based on the simple premise that beauty is in the eye of the beholder!"

Grabbit: "What?"

Runne: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Grabbit: "Who says so?"

Runne: "Well, it's a time-honoured saying wait a minute, I think I see where this is going."

Grabbit: "Yes - I'll bet we can knock that one for six too! Now, here's how we go about it"

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