No fat chicks

I’m sure that we are all grateful to the Economist for a valuable insight into the subtle interaction of diet and reproduction. Conservationists in New Zealand, attempting to save a species of flightless and nocturnal parrots called kakapos, isolated them on predator-free islets and fed the females as much as they wanted to aid them in breeding. Unfortunately, the immediate side-effect of this all-you-can-eat buffet was a generation of fat females producing many more male offspring than female, with predictable results in terms of the parrot equivalents of violence and social cohesion. Only when the scientists cut the ladies’ rations back to being just enough to maintain fertility, and no more, did both gender balance and peace return.

One wonders if there is not some wider application to this lesson. If

free food + lazy females = too many preening males

then perhaps also

state-subsidized chips + idle welfare whores = too many 50 Cent wannabes and knife-wielding ratboy hoodies

Now as the Good Book says, the poor are always with us, as are the stupid. For ease of identification the two are usually the same, with the obvious exceptions of the Royal Family and your boss. No-one minds that there are lots of poor people. But it does become an issue when they are mostly dangerous vermin, and there are not enough dim-bulb scrunchied slappers to ring up your purchases in Boots and jack you off in nightclub car parks. The natural order is at risk.

Wherefore we turn to Mother Nature for answers, and she offers us the example of the humble kakapo. Round up your slappers - she seems to tell us with a benign smile - dump them on some barren offshore rock, and feed them just enough to keep them fertile, and soon cashier lines and cosmetic counters throughout the land will echo once again to the happy trilling of that simple yet decorative creature, the Great British Bird.

Let’s listen to Mother.


A shameless welfare sponger and her hoodlets, yesterday.