Space cadets are in charge
TEA LEAF FORECAST BEATS DUD APP
The track-and-tracing story becomes more glorious every week. We were told it would be a “game-changer”.
So they tried it in Leicester, where the city is back in lockdown, and concluded: “We have no idea of the source of this outbreak.”
That’s the sort of precision we’ve been crying out for.
All the best inventions are this accurate. When
Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he tried it out and his friends declared: “It is marvellous, sir. I can’t hear a thing. Truly you are a genius, sir.”
It has cost millions to get this far with an app that doesn’t work, but other methods would be just as useful and much cheaper. We could have a track-andtracing dandelion, where a doctor blows the seeds away, saying,
“She’s infected, she’s infected not”, until there are none left and then we know.
They could have track-andtracing tea leaves, with a woman in a headband saying: “You are going on a long journey, so I hope it’s not to the Nightingale Hospital, dear.”
Or they could try a game show on ITV, hosted by Bradley Walsh, where a contestant has to answer a question.
If they get it right, they’re negative. But before the answer’s revealed, Bradley says his catchphrase: “Is it ventilator, or down the pub later?”
The guidance from the Prime Minister on face masks seems to be extremely clear: “Wear one if you fancy, I don’t know, bit of a palaver really.”
It’s the same at NASA. They say to the astronauts: “You can wear a space suit if you want but it’s a bit of a nuisance. What if you want to eat an Aero bar while you’re floating past an asteroid? I wouldn’t bother.”
And nuclear scientists are given strict instructions: “While you’re picking up radioactive piles of plutonium, you can wear gloves if you think it will help. But they’re such a job to get on and you only have to take them off again when you get home.”