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| Barn owl's face discovered in space |
You may have seen the announcement...
Yes, all over our screens over the past couple of days has been played (and replayed) that delightful clip of a slowly-enunciating chap saying, with barely suppressed glee, "We've done it.....We've appointed Dan Walker to replace Bill Turnbull on BBC Breakfast", and a roomful of scientists immediately breaking into applause and cheering.
For the first time ever a couple of supermassive black holes (known informally at Caltech and MIT as 'Mardell' and 'Stourton') have been seen spiralling in towards each other, and a 'chirp' has proved that Einstein was right: Dan Walker is the best man to replace Bill Turnbull.
Unfortunately someone's darn gone and spoiled it (someone in a wheelchair with an American-sounding voice and a speech synthesiser I reckon).
Yes, shock news has emerged that Dan Walker is a creationist.
If apples fall from trees onto Brian Cox's beautifully-styled bonce it's because of that damned snake, tempting Eve into pulling it down through the force of temptation.
Someone from the Telegraph immediately fainted on the spot.
And "a senior BBC figure" (Aaqil Ahmed? Probably not) told The Times that Dan's 'creationist' view are "a bit nutty".
Einstein is said to be turning in his grave.
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The chap from the Telegraph wasn't the only one to faint.
Hundreds of people across the UK also fainted on discovering that the BBC has appointed a believing Christian who refuses to work on Sundays to present its flagship breakfast show.
They'd expected a believing Muslim who refuses to work on Fridays instead.
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To be serious, this whole storm does seem to have begun with some "senior BBC figure" sounding off at the absurdity of Dan Walker's Christian beliefs, as that senior BBC figure described them to the Times.
That sounds like the BBC I know...
...except that that very same BBC has now employed Mr Walker!
Now, I myself don't accept creationism for one minute (and then some) but if believing Muslims can believe that their Prophet (PBUH) flew to Jerusalem on a winged horse and yet still continue presenting current affairs programmes (or maybe even heading Religion and Ethics for the BBC) then surely Dan Walker can present BBC Breakfast without too much nuttiness...
...and people do seem to like what he's done with Football Focus (not that I could possibly comment on that).
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| Nicky, and a dog (which spells 'God' backwards) |
Maybe that mysterious bad-mouthing "senior BBC figure" was Radio 5 Live's Nicky Campbell.
Nicky was inviting calls on the subject of gravitational waves this morning when a chap from the Glasgow area came on air to say (very politely) that 'heat loss' proved the earth to be 6-10 thousand years old, 'as the Bible says'.
Go to 18:11 into the programme and listen to what happened next.
"Uh-oh!", "Wow!", "Alarm bells are going off in here!"
"I'm despairing," said Nicky about his creationist caller.
"Oh dear!", he then sighed, before going on to call the caller's beliefs "hogwash".
"Deal with it!", he added for good measure.
Dare we hope that Nicky will be just as rude to representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain on the next The Big Questions to deal with this kind of subject?
