Life’s too short to worry about crinkle-cut fingers

For the lucky few, such as Professor Brian Cox, who first found fame as a drummer in the band, D:Ream, fame awaits with a lucrative television contract and the opportunity to amaze the nation with their intelligence and knowledge.

At the other end of the scale, scientists are confined to the world of academe studying, of all things, why fingers and toes go all prune-like after spending too long in a hot bath or the frequency of cows breaking wind.

In the same week as Prof Cox – and the equally knowledgeable Irish comic Dara Ó Briain, jointly presented Stargazing Live on BBC Two, researchers from the University of Newcastle published their findings in the Royal Society journal, Biology Letters. While in Jersey the Environment Department was discussing how to reduce the harmful effects of bovine burps.

I can’t say that the conundrum of why skin crinkles after a long soak in a hot bath has ever kept me awake at night. Until last week I had never given the matter a second thought and would have carried on, in my own way, without ever knowing the reason why. It was one of those obvious facts of life that like most people I took for granted.

Yet it isn’t quite that simple anymore. If you educate people to the lofty heights of doctorates and professorships then they have to justify their existence. In a world, which no longer holds that many secrets – now anything that could be discovered pretty much has been – the time has come to scrape the bottom of the academic barrel.

The condition of crinkly fingers, we have been told, is not simply a case of waterlogged skin. Far from it, the cause has its roots in man’s transformation from pond life to what it is today.

The investigations undertaken in the North-East’s highest educational establishment are purported to show that crinkles are actually caused by ‘the blood vessels constricting in reaction to the water, which in turn is a response controlled by the body’s sympathetic nervous system’. This further suggests that our ancestors may have evolved these creases as they foraged and clambered for food in rivers, lakes and wet forests.

Well, I don’t know about you, but having grown up in an Island where low-water fishing is a common past time, and being acquainted with quite a few fishermen, I can’t say that I have ever noticed the extent of the crinkling of their fingers. Though I suppose if your living or hobby depends on persuading rock clinging delicacies to loosen their grip, then a bit of extra friction would come in very handy.

Whether solving the conundrum was worth the time and money spent is another matter in a world where there are far important problems that require solving. It is also on a par with the study that has revealed that bovine flatulence accounts for about one per cent of the Island’s emissions of greenhouse gases.

Considering that one third of Jersey’s greenhouse gases are caused by the combustion engine, and another third by domestic heating and power, cows could have hoped to carry on chewing the cud and expelling methane to their heart’s content, so small their contribution to pollution levels in comparison to other culprits.

Apparently not so. As part of Jersey’s aim to cut harmful emissions by 80 per cent of 1990 levels by 2050, our delightful indigenous breed is expected to do its bit just like the rest of us.

There are times when I read this esteemed newspaper and find myself checking the date, as everyday could be mistaken for April Fools Day.

If a cow can’t enjoy a good feed without worrying about the pollution levels of what will eventually come out the other end then what next? Filters on the States chamber to clean the hot air generated by the verbal diarrhea produced at every sitting or a word limit on Members’ speeches to reduce the harmful effects of the gases emitted?

Apparently, as cows diets are monitored and controlled as closely as those of weight-obsessed skeletal celebrities, their gas emissions are likely to be easier to easier to reduce than our beloved politicians. And, it seems that less gases mean even higher milk yields – but then I assume if a stomach isn’t full of foul-smelling wind there will be more room inside the cow for milk. Or is that a far too simple assumption?

Whatever, our dear delicate Jersey cows will be expected to ‘do their bit’ to save the planet, by the Environment Department which is fast gaining the reputation of becoming the looniest of all Jersey’s arms of government. In an administration such as ours that is really saying something.

The proposed sweeter smelling burp and trump future is part of Pathway 50: An Energy Plan for Jersey. With a title like that you know it is doomed to fail.

If it was so important then instead of the consultation being tucked away online in the current fashion of such processes, it should be subject – as such matters were in the not so distant good old days – to a far greater scrutiny of public consultation and meetings.

Excuse me if I have missed anything of the sort but I was probably too busy counting the crinkles on my fingers and toes after a good soak in the bath.