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The Tea Maker
2014 has been officially designated as the Year of the Dorset Cream Tease (YDCT). You only have to look around to see what others have suggested as worthwhile projects to realise that this is a major, creative step forward for Dorset Eye and its readership, as well as a thumbs down to the usual suspects.
And so to the runners-up.
Horses?
Chinese astrology says we should be celebrating the Year of the Horse but unless you’re a rich tax evader, a jockey or a fucking rustler, where do you find a horse to celebrate with? This was a non-starter.
Crystallography?
The United Nations could have better luck with this one. Although crystallography underpins all sciences, no one really knows anything about it. So the UN made 2014 the International Year of Crystallography so we’d all discover that crystallography is the science that examines the arrangement of atoms in solids. X-ray crystallography has allowed us to study the chemical bonds which draw one atom to another. Crystallographers now apply this knowledge to modify a structure and thus change its properties and behaviour. Are you keeping up with me?
Crystallography has become the core of structural science, revealing the structure of DNA, allowing us to understand and produce computer memories, showing us how proteins are created in cells and helping scientists to design powerful new materials and drugs. It’s the backbone of our industries. We rely on it to generate knowledge and create new products in sectors such as agro-food, aeronautics, automobiles, cosmetics and computers as well as the electro-mechanical, pharmaceutical and mining industries.
Crystallography is cool but it’s still not as fucking cool as Dorset Cream Tease.
Our Brains?
The European Brain Council is trying to change the way Europeans think about their brains by making 2014 the European Year of the Brain. It’s an idea that is gaining lots of support from patients’ organisations, scientific communities, health care professionals and industry in all areas of brain disorders.
The European Year of the Brain is also getting plenty of support from a number of European Commissioners and there’s lots of enthusiasm from the European Parliament and EU Member States.
But why all this fuss about our brains? It’s because our brain is the most complex structure in the universe and lies inside each and every one of us. It’s still not fully understood by science but, as our understanding increases, it brings new insights, new treatments, new risks and new moral dilemmas.
As well as providing the basis of our personality, thoughts, feelings and other human characteristics, the brain is also the origin of many chronic disabling diseases that impact on society and which place an increasing strain on healthcare systems.
But our brains also enable us to achieve many amazing successes. From unlocking clues to the universe, raising happy and healthy children, building amazing and timeless structures, to learning new ways of working when our brains have been damaged. There are countless examples of achievements we can celebrate. I realise that it may be difficult to get your head around this but it was actually a brain that created Dorset Cream Tease.
Forward into 2014
I want to thank everyone, i.e. Mary from Weymouth, who voted Dorset Cream Tease as the 2014 project most likely to gain a global following in the next twelve months on the basis that horses are a fucking nightmare in a flat, crystallography is too complicated, even for the above average Dorset Eye reader, and if brains were so fucking amazing why would we end up voting the way we do?
2014 – Year of the Dorset Cream Tease
What else is there?
The Tea Maker
PS: You can comment on this story by emailing me at [email protected] and I’ll respond to your emails in next week’s column. We’ll never publish your email address.
