Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Members of Parliament
To most of us MPs seem to be missing links in the historical chain that connects us with primitive humans. They roar a great deal as they hunt for votes but once in parliament their calls are different. A lot more restrained, a lot more equivocal as they move into the self-enclosed world of law making and social engineering. They develop protectionist herd instincts to demarcate them from the main, later evolutionary strand of humankind which we call society. They use their new but rudimentary forebrains to fashion sound bytes, this being the maximum amount of information they can hold at any one time. Though communal, they retain the atavistic urge to kill and eat their own kind. Their binocular vision enables them to look straight ahead and ignore or simply not see what is going on around them. They use their opposable thumbs to grub for expenses.
They are, in fact like Ida, the much heralded missing link being publicised by some biological archeologists yesterday. Found in perfect condition despite being over 40 million years old (you can see her hair, you can see what she ate last) Ida will soon be displayed on a TV near you. She is, in fact a species of lemur. My screen was a bit wonky when I read this and I misread it at first as leper.
Hence my inspiration for this blog.