The War on Obesity; A Scientist Speaks. The Pangolin’s Resident Scientific Adviser Dr P J Whimbrel

Good Morning. Or Evening. Depending on where you are. In Glossop and certain parts of Birkenhead, its yesterday. Time’s a bugger isn’t it? No matter. I have been asked to say something about recent recommendations made by a Mr Andrew Burnham MP, Shadow Health Secretary, about the food we eat and the road to obesity. I strongly suspect that Mr Burnham (5 stone 6 wet through) is not unlike my cousin, the celebrated gong soloist Pip Whimbrel who eats huge amounts, especially of raw suet, but never gains any weight. Dear Pip’s been 19 stone since he was three. You see, its all to do with something called metabolism. Or Mr Burnham’s got worms.

Whatever. 

It may be apposite at this point to draw your attention to some very interesting research I have been conducting into the relationship between humour and weight. We took two cartoons labelled ONE and TWO (TWO referring to the second one).

We showed these cartoons to a randomly selected group of people brought together by my colleague Prof Anna Prongg who hung a sign saying “BIG HANDFULS OF FREE MONEY IN HERE” outside Pangolin’s research HQ.

The results are interesting. All the fat mouthbreathers thought cartoon ONE was hilarious. Some collapsed in blobby heaps, weeping with laughter whilst others applauded and shouted, “****ing hell! That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen since the one with the bloke and the banana skin !”. The same group were perplexed by cartoon TWO. Some tried to eat it. Others shouted, “Where’s the money, then?” But not one cracked a smile.

Conversely, the thin, rail-like members of our randomly selected group, some sporting tattoos saying “Bilderberg! Find! Kill!”, dismissed cartoon ONE out of hand with shouts of, “Shameful working class parody!” and, “Ooh – er Missus, domestic violence is a crime!”

Upon being shown cartoon TWO, however, thin group members all nodded knowingly. Prof. Prongg noted at least three faint, sardonic smiles and several remarks including “Cool” ,“Wicked and, “Zebulon? What sort of a ****ing name is Zebulon?”

Sadly, at this point security had to be called as it turned out that one of the fatties was called Zebulon McHeftie.

Nevertheless, this unfortunately truncated piece of research does strongly suggest that if you like seaside postcard humour (cartoon ONE), you’re a fattie. If, on the other hand, you prefer cartoon TWO, you’re a pretentious conspiracy theorist and poor company to boot. 

Thank you.

And next week, my distinguished colleague, the very lovely Prof Anna Prongg, will tell us where all the money went.