Pangolin Science: The Effects of Music on Plant Growth

They're a funny breed, scientists, what with their grubby white coats with biros leaking into the top pocket, bald heads and nhs spectacles - that and the way they used to attach polygraphs to plants.  They've been telling us for a long time that music has a beneficial effect on plant growth, so we conducted a survey to see what our Pangolin readers had to say.

Tobias Pumblechook of Stechford isn't so sure.

"Someone told me that playing music to plants makes them grow better, but it's a load of poppycock.  I've tried talking to plants and got only abuse in return, too.  Why, I was making encouraging whoops and shrieks to my vegetable patch, and even playing it highlights from the William Tell Overture - when my neighbours called the police.  The psychiatrist they called out told me to stop being a stupid pillock, and then made me walk home.  I thought I might do better with indoor plants, but I'm damned if I can get my herbaceous border into the living room.  Once again, the so-called experts get it wrong!"

Delphinia Spragg from Pratt's Bottom couldn't disagree more.

"Not only can music make plants grow better, but I'm convinced that music can turn people into plants. My seventeen-year-old son, Crucifer, listens to some right crap through his headphones during both of his waking hours - and he looks more and more like a cabbage every day!"

More edifying thoughts

On This Day...

Roving reporter, Rupert Besley, has delved into the extensive Pangolin archives - held in the basement of the Mappin Terraces at London Zoo - to take our beloved readers for a bit of a rolling stagger down Memory Lane. This was no mean feat as that worthy terrain is infested with emus.

25 Years Ago

Residents of Alma Terrace in the picturesque Hampshire village of Little Humping were plunged into darkness shortly before midnight, when a streetlamp bulb blew close to the junction with Sebastopol Road. ‘This is the second time in thirteen and a half months,’ said local resident Trevor Pidcock, 59, whose brother Norman, 61, had a similar thing happen to him in Argentina just over 12 years previously. Red-faced council officials were busy liaising with technical staff in a bid to solve the ongoing problem.

50 Years Ago

Scientists from around the world gathered in Denmark for the first test-firing of a new generation of ground-to-air missiles built entirely of Lego. The launch mission was aborted when two sections of rocket wing fell off in the opening seconds of final countdown.

5 Years Ago

The memorial service took place yesterday for Lady Eglantine Hart-Farquhar, late of the Bombay Rifles. Lady Hart-Farquhar, whose interests were listed in Who’s Who as tadpoling and kung-fu, was a distinguished poet as well as a crackshot with a submachine gun. Above all she will be remembered in the village of Farquharsgrove for her unusual outfits and her generous loan each year of the small field known as The Marsh for staging the village fete. A packed church joined in a hearty rendition of the final anthem, ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain When She Comes’.

Edifying Thoughts as it's Sunday

The Pope was in the Vatican

Where the paint was all a’peelin’

He decided to do the whole place up

Michelangelo got the ceilin’

Plenty of folk dropping in... and out...

Please feel free to add your own comments, observations and feedback below. Our visitors' book has lines in it, of course.  Mr & Mrs Boaring of Pinner had written their comment on the loo roll.

Our Science Correspondent Dr P J Whimbrel reports...

Pleb sources close to Downing Street suggest to The Pangolin that David Cameron and Nick Clegg are soon to roll out a raft of proposals aimed at beefing up Mr Cameron’s long – awaited Happiness legislation. 

At a recent meeting with advisers and Eric Pickles, popularly tipped to become the UK’s first Happiness Tsar, Mr Cameron unveiled plans to install electronic thought readers in all urban conurbations.

“Look,"said the Prime Minister, “Let me make this perfectly clear. We want people to be happy, right? Psychologist johnnies tell me that having bad thoughts about something or somebody can make you unhappy, OK? So because this administration is like really in touch and down and dirty with all our brothers and sisters out there, my government and I are going to come down hard on people thinking bad unhappy-making thoughts.”

Mr Eric Pickles, accompanied by a large Alsatian spoke to waiting reporters outside the meeting, echoing his Leaders’ proposals. “Look,” he said. “ Let me make this perfectly clear, the electronic devices will be fitted to lamp posts or other lofty structures and will be tuned to peoples’ bad thoughts. 
In the first instance, they will be limited to folks’ bad thoughts about Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg, Mr Osborne and fat buggers with big dogs, but later their remit may be widened to include royalty, the Church, the U.S.A, the BBC and bankers."

At this point Mr Pickles introduced Frau Olga Goebbels (no relation), Technical Director of YM – MM (Your Mind is My Mind), manufacturers of the Happithink devices. Frau Goebbles said, “Ven der kleine box is detecting der bad thoughts about our superiors is send out der small not so painful taser blast. Undt zen der bad thinkings stop."

Pangolin’s religious affairs correspondent, Olwyn Goodfellow, tells us “The Anglican Church seem to be sitting on the fence with this one whilst the latest Papal encyclical urges local councils to be sparing in their reliance of the Happithink devices as taser blasts can have a contraceptive effect.”

The Nature of Time

The Pangolin’s Science Correspondence Dr P J Whimbrel answers some of the thousands of letters and emails we’ve had about the nature of Time. What is it? Where does it go?

From Barry in Dawlish:

“What’s all this stuff about time running out? They’re always telling us stuff’s running out. Gas, oil, an’ it never does. OK there might be the odd queue but it never runs out does it? It's just there innit.”

And Mrs Jean Flambard MSc, in Bath.

“Surely time is the ultimate barrier linked as it is to the speed of light and velocities humans can never achieve".

Dr Whimbrel writes:

“Whoa Jean! Heavy, heavy! You’ve been watching Beeb 4 haven’t you? Maybe peeking at all that stuff coming out of CERN, yeah? But you’re probably right, OK? Besides, Godwit and Zyrcwzc’s work on time travel suggests that if we DID travel back and forth in time, our natural curiosity would really screw things up. I mean we’d fiddle, right? Who could resist getting Elvis onto a drugs rehabilitation programme or taking Himmler to one side and beating the shit out of him? Or having the final goal disallowed in 1966?”

(Pause here for Dr Whimbrel to have a bit of a lie down).

“And Barry – a practical chap obviously – you’ll be pleased to know that for years scientists have suspected that like gas and oil, this planet has vast reservoirs of time buried somewhere. Occasionally, operating a bit like volcanoes, a bit of time leaks out into the atmosphere through a vent. Some think that our very own Prime Minister is such a vent. Whenever he speaks, time seems to pass very slowly. 

But we’re a long way from being sure about this. Mr Cameron was approached some time ago by Dr Godwit to see if the PM has a vent. Ugly scenes followed with Dr Godwit being called an interfering Pleb and being made to give Mr Cameron his trousers back. Best I can do Baz. Time will tell.”

Wow. Dontcha love that Science! Next time we’ll be talking to Kate Rumble from BBC’s Slimewatch about why slugs crawl up garage walls at night. Can’t wait!