Scientists claim skin cancer makes you smarter

(Cheesy…? Moi…?!)

Now, this is one of those stories that make Internet browsing such fun.

No, I’m not talking about yet another celebrity divorce, fuck-up or cult.

What’s great about the Internet is all those stories that swim there, mostly unobserved, minding their own business, always being upstaged by the big, Paris Hilton type fish but not minding this one little bit.

Stories like the following, that pop up occasionally, like a modestly flying fish – not making that much of a splash in the process but always fun to catch sight of:

“For decades parents have warned their children not to have cheese before bedtime to prevent bad dreams. But researchers have disproved this old wife’s tale and found that cheese could actually aid sleep. The study by the British Cheese Board, involved 200 volunteers in a week-long experiment. The cheese-munching volunteers reported no nasty dreams after a late night snack. After eating a 20g piece of cheese 30 minutes before going to sleep, 72 per cent of the volunteers slept very well every night, just over two thirds remembered their dreams and none reported nightmares.”

‘Cui bono?’ is what the old Roman consul & censor Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla used to say – and God knows how many detective writers after him.

I suppose ‘What’s up, doc?’ would work as a translation – if you can complement that with a mental image of a nervous Elmer Fudd who’s guiltily stuffing his wallet with big dollar notes.

In other words, it would have been more convincing if this passionate defence of cheese had not come from the British Cheese Board…

I’m not saying our Cheese Boys cheated but it does sound a bit like a ‘The water is lovely’ campaign by the Australian Shark Board, or some such.

All of which idle chit chat brings us to the news story that caught my eye, a bit earlier today:

“Being a sun worshipper could make you cleverer in later life and ward off dementia, claim scientists. Researchers found that increased levels of vitamin D, obtained from exposure to sun or eating oily fish, could help keep our brains in top condition as we age.”

Which will come in very handy, of course – when you have to make an informed & intelligent decision about which type of skin cancer treatment you will go for.

Cui bono…?

Hell, I don’t know.

Just don’t blame me when you stuff your face with cheese, right before bedtime and then dream of a chorus line of malignant moles in sharkskin suits, doing the background vocals for the Dick Cheney Quintet, who are surfing their water boards, while singing ‘Skin flakes keep falling from my head.’

(Hm, I LOVE this woman...:)