No Joy Whatsoever

I had an almost brilliant day out with my mother today in Peterborough doing our bit for the British economy and I she gave me my birthday presents in anticipation of tomorrow. I got a skirt (ideal for the honeymoon), "1066 And All That" (kewl) and a mug (which is also kewl). What was not kewl is that I've managed to lose my mobile phone, I think I left at the Costa Coffee and some fuck wit half inched it instead of doing the decent thing and handing it in to the staff. The phone is now off when you the number. I know I was stupid to leave it there but still, I hope he or she gets no joy out of it whatsoever or the fiver they'll get from selling it to their fence, or the drugs they buy with that fiver. No Joy Whatsoever.

Almost fact free science reporting

From the BBC website... yet again. This time it's about left handedness: Scientists at Oxford University have identified a gene LRRTM1 that appears to be linked to left handedness, but there's a hitch according to this article the gene is also linked with schizophrenia. Except for this idea seems at the moment only an idea which hasn't yet been investigated there are too many mays and nothing definite - the article says the risk is only slight, well how slight, 1 in 1 000, 1 in 10 000, a million? and the killer quote for me is.

We don't yet know the precise role of this gene.

If the BBC reported the arts or politics in such a slapdash manner there would be uproar, questions in the House of Commons and general carpeting of the editors but science it doesn't matter as long as they can twist something sensational out of it.