Saturday, May 08, 2004
Noses and razors
Daphne was disgusted, and Paris took it as a post factum justification of merely one of his idiosyncratic and anti-social habits. But it was the science that I found so appealing.
Farouk had been browsing the Austrian newspapers. He does that! I think it's his wistful way of saying he wants to be part of the "new Europe". He came across this juicy [sic] little piece in ANANOVA:
'Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.
Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies.
He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up.
Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.
"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system."'
I had always wondered why I seemed so impervious to the infuenza epidemics that rountinely sweep around the Lake. Unlike Paris, I am not wont to flaunt social norms; but I must confess to an occasional boogie bite in the privacy of my own lair. I had never thought it a prophylactic! How would anyone ever come up with an idea like that? And that's when it hit me - the beauty of the scientific method and the parsimony of Ockham's Razor. Today everything seems different.
Farouk had been browsing the Austrian newspapers. He does that! I think it's his wistful way of saying he wants to be part of the "new Europe". He came across this juicy [sic] little piece in ANANOVA:
'Picking your nose and eating it is one of the best ways to stay healthy, according to a top Austrian doctor.
Innsbruck-based lung specialist Prof Dr Friedrich Bischinger said people who pick their noses with their fingers were healthy, happier and probably better in tune with their bodies.
He says society should adopt a new approach to nose-picking and encourage children to take it up.
Dr Bischinger said: "With the finger you can get to places you just can't reach with a handkerchief, keeping your nose far cleaner.
"And eating the dry remains of what you pull out is a great way of strengthening the body's immune system."'
I had always wondered why I seemed so impervious to the infuenza epidemics that rountinely sweep around the Lake. Unlike Paris, I am not wont to flaunt social norms; but I must confess to an occasional boogie bite in the privacy of my own lair. I had never thought it a prophylactic! How would anyone ever come up with an idea like that? And that's when it hit me - the beauty of the scientific method and the parsimony of Ockham's Razor. Today everything seems different.
