Arguing with Mr Logic

So, first things first. I know you're itching to know how the quiz went. Well, I'm not one to brag but our team (cunningly named "CORPUS CHRISTI TRIMBLE!") was victorious. It was a real team effort and I found out a lot of things I never knew, for instance:

- The thinnest skin on the human body is the eyelids;
- China is the biggest country in the world only to have one time zone;
- The Spanish national anthem doesn't have any words; and of course
- We're fucking ace at quizzes! Woo hoo!

Anyway, enough bragging. My main contribution was to reach into the darkest recesses of my mind and pull out the full names of both of the hit men in Pulp Fiction - so I can partly thank Messrs Vega and Winnfield for the lovely bottle of Rioja Gran Reserva I brought home with me this evening.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. I very rarely lose arguments but I made the mistake of floating one of my pet theories past my friend David at work today and that's where the trouble all began. I have a number of pet theories. For instance I have long suspected that if the Wombles had ever teamed up with the A-Team and MacGyver the world would be trembling with fear. The Wombles make good use of things that everyday folk throw away and the A-Team can make a rocket launcher from random shit lying around in a locked garage. Picture the carnage if they joined forces with MacGyver, they'd take a few pipecleaners, the lid off a Muller Light, some ring pulls and some foil ready meal trays and have weapons of mass destruction in no time. It's a chilling thought.

But anyway, this was one of my other pet theories - about Jamie Oliver. I've long suspected that he has an unfair advantage as a chef. A bit part of your sense of taste is based on taste receptors in the tongue, and you don't have to be a keen observer to spot that Jamie Oliver's tongue is enormous. So, my reasoning goes, surely things taste better to Jamie Oliver than they do to we mere mortals. In fact, maybe to people with normal sized tongues his recipes are bland and not very good.

That's my theory and I've always been quite proud of it. But my fatal mistake was telling my theory to David. I thought he would be impressed, possibly even slightly amused. But I was wrong, and I was taken apart with almost brutal ease. For anyone who thinks I never lose an argument, here's how it went.

ME: Of course he's going to think his food is delicious, he has a tongue the size of a Persian rug. You can't really argue with that.
DAVID: You might be over-confident there. A relatively good case for taste not being related to the size of the tongue could be made.
ME: I just think there's some relationship between tongue size and ability to taste.
DAVID: Tongue size, or tongue size relative to the mouth containing said tongue?
ME: Absolute tongue size. Though good point, maybe his tongue just looks big because his mouth is small.
DAVID: Is your tongue argument actually not a tongue argument at all? Is your hypothesis just that the number of taste receptors is an influential factor on the sensation of taste? Are you making the assumption that a bigger tongue has more receptors then? Or larger receptors? Would this make them more or less sensitive? Can a blue whale enjoy the taste of a strawberry thousands of times more than a mouse? I would suggest not. I believe you may be completely wrong. Oliver's fat tongue is actually a handicap to his chosen career as chef.

My argument was in tatters.

ME: You are much much better at arguing than I am, I would tell Kelly but she'd never believe me.
DAVID: So you would make the case that you're not as good at arguing as someone else, and Mrs E would not believe you? That would prove your point, surely?
ME: Jesus, you're on fire.
DAVID: Empirical evidence concerning my lack of either a) stigmata and b) excessive surface temperature would suggest that I am neither the messiah nor combusting.
ME: This conversation is so going in my blog.
DAVID: Crack on!

Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Did I mention we won the quiz?