Pet grooming versus nuclear fusion

Bouncing Bertie Boffin here!

Gosh you learn can some interesting things watching the telly can't you?

Now you might think from this wee video clip that I was not paying attention last week while Gail was entranced by her hero Brian Cox pontificating about science, energy resources and the future of mankind.

But can bet your bottom dollar that my flappy little ears pricked up when I heard Professor Cox assert the following:

"Americans spend ten times more money a year on pet grooming than they do on nuclear fusion."

I think some criticism was implied.

Well my friends, what to make of this?

As we know, an explosive release of energy can sometimes result if a muddy dog is confronted with a tub of warm water and a bottle of shampoo.

However is a settled fact in the Bertie and Gail household that very little money is spent on pet grooming. It costs nothing to rinse a pup in the River Dee after all.

But before Gail starts to look any sort of smug, I ask her just how much of her hard earned cash went on nuclear fusion over the past twelve months.

This elicits a rambling response about paying taxes and government funded scientific research, blah blah, blah, all of which amounts to an admission that the hairbrush she purchased from Pets at Home back in February might have cost more than any indirect contribution she's made to solving the world energy crisis.

Fellow pups, I am wondering if we might start a campaign. Next time your owner threatens you with a 'spa day', why not suggest instead they put their pennies in an envelope and send them off to their nearest nuclear fusion laboratory…?

How else will we secure a carbon-free energy future?

Brian Cox: not cuter than me, surely?

Well it has been quite a week down here in England.

So in an intermission between visiting HGD in hospital, Gail disappeared off to London on business for two days. I went to stay with my cousins, standard poodles Percy and Cocoa in their beautiful Derbyshire farmhouse and I can't pretend it was all bad, even if Percy is a wee bit bossy and I was banned from chasing sheep in the fields nearby.

Really I could have stayed longer. In fact I nearly asked to go back there, when I heard what Gail had to say about her London trip.

I mean I thought she was going down for important meetings, but oh no, she came back babbling like a starstruck schoolgirl.

"Oh Bertie, we had such an exciting meal out on Wednesday night. I went with my colleagues, all geophysicists and engineers, to a Chinese restaurant near Victoria Station and can you believe who was at the table next to us? Brian Cox*, Eric Idle** and James Dyson***, all on the same table! Gosh we were so thrilled. I mean Brian Cox looked and acted exactly like on TV. Even the gestures. I like to think they were planning to write a comic song about quantum energy levels in vacuum cleaners or something. Oh Brian Cox is just so cute and adorable...."

It was a long time before she got around to saying that she'd missed me.

Explanation for readers based outside of the UK:
*Brian Cox: physics professor, presenter of brilliant science programmes on TV, ex-pop star, heart throb!
**Eric Idle: ex Monty Python, of course.
***James Dyson: inventor of the Dyson bagless vacuum cleaner and much else.


PS from Gail: against the odds HGD has rallied, still in hospital but he was sitting up and gave me a big smile when I visited yesterday.

Announcing the Bouncing Boffin!

Now that it's the new school year, my friends, we are going to turn attention to our broader education!

In particular, I have no doubt it has already occurred to you that matters scientific, whilst so crucial to our everyday lives in the twenty-first century, have been, to date, sadly neglected in blogs written by members of the species Canis lupus familiaris. 

Time to redress the balance!

Well I think you may know that my human carer Gail has pretensions to being some sort of a scientist.

And in a striking example of nurture triumphing over nature, I too am developing a fascination with the subject.

So I am planning a series of occasional lectures in the forthcoming winter months in which I intend to enlighten you all, giving the canine perspective on an assortment of fundamental scientific principles. Think of it as a dog's breakfast....

There will be no shying away from the challenging  topics - relativity, cosmology, evolution, quantum mechanics, genetics, earth science, biodiversity, nuclear physics and much else, all presented in a dog friendly manner and with my customary youthful bounce! (Gail is saying something about 'channeling my energies in a constructive fashion'.)

What's more, if any of my canine friends out there want to propose a topic that might be worthy of my special attention, please do let me know. Nothing trivial, please!

To ease us in gently, my first lecture, scheduled for some time next week, will concern the second law of thermodynamics, which states that everything tends inexorably to a state of increasing disorder, a concept that I suspect is already familiar to most dogs and their owners.  Perhaps, to prepare for the lecture, some of you might like to suggest an example or two where you have observed this law to apply in everyday life....

B. Bertie Boffin
The Brian Cox of the Dog Blogosphere.