So Matt Taylor, the man responsible for sending a ‘lander’ the size of a washing machine on a comet, 370 million miles away and traveling faster than any speed camera could hope to detect, after a 10 year voyage to get there, is in shame. After achieving the most amazing scientific feat of several generations, he is in the shit because of a shirt. This shirt. The ‘sleeves’ are him, not the shirt.

Because Matt Taylor is not exactly your stereotypical boffin. He’s not a bow-tie kind of a professor. He doesn’t do the Einstein look, nor the wheelchair and voice-box now favourite among the physicist classes. He’s a heavy metal guy who happens to be a genius at space-stuff. And he likes tattoos. What would be known as an ‘individual’. But the shirt caused outrage because it depicts scantily-clad women in suggestive poses. And that, according to his detractors, makes him almost a rapist. No better than Ched Evans or Jimmy Savile. A predatory sex-fiend who should be castrated then locked up for a very very long time, then registered on the Sartorial Offenders List forevermore. Amen.

Because that shirt is what’s known in fashion circles as ‘well dodgy’. A bit tacky. Awfully lairy. Hawaiian style shirts generally are an affront to mankind and the brighter they get does nothing to help their cause.

But its a shirt. A fucking shirt. Not a political statement. Not a dig at womankind. Not a mission policy. That it has pictures of cartoon babes scantily clad and in chains, holding guns and ‘pouting with menace’ does not make it evil. Its fun. Its funny. And its ironic. Would these detractors be happier if Matty wore a ‘this is what a feminist looks like’ t-shirt, made by slaves in Mauritius? Just because the sentiment is so ‘on message’? Even though they’re female slaves working 100-hour weeks for $2.50. That’s ironic.

And Matt’s shirt is ironic. 90% of t-shirt slogans are ironic. Clothes can be ironic, as can perceived ‘statements’. Sadly, Americans just don’t ‘do’ ironic. Even Alanis Morrisette (ok, Canadian, American, whatever) missed the point in about three quarters of her famous song. Thus we must assume that these proto-feminist fascist gorillas (that’s ironic, don’t complain, more importantly, don’t hit me) are Americans, thus immediately miss the point completely and go into attack mode. Well keep yer Doc Martens on, gels, its only a joke.

I hate political correctness when its used at the expense of wit. What a dull fucking world these people aspire to.

Though it is a world in which England, once again, showed Scotland who is the boss(es). Stunning display by Rooney et al. I’ve always loved the man. Always. I bet he wears wife-beater vests.

Happy wednesday

A xxxx