It's telly selly time again and the soothing advert calls on us to "Try the new Tempur mattress. Originally developed by NASA for the U.S. Space Program."
How the fuck is saying that something was made to be used by astronauts supposed to be a ringing endorsement to us poor saps down here on earth?
My understanding of astronautical life is that you spend most of it floating around in a giant tin can and so only manage to grab 40 winks when you occasionally come to rest up against a wall or on the ceiling. I don't know about you but, being lumbered with gravity 'n' all, I tend to lie down when it's bobos time and so a mattress designed to wedge in between the dado rail and the top of the wardrobe is about as much use to me as an ashtray on a motorbike.
Also, in space you are virtually weightless and so could get a decent kip on a bed of fucking nails! I don't hear them advertising the Spear and Jackson Pointy Pad Posturematic, do you?
Added to all this, I believe astronauts spend their journeys pulling 7G, upside down while travelling at 3,000-miles-an-hour through a void. Again, even though my head has occasionally spun when I've gone to bed after a night on the sauce, I can't ever recall being subjected to more than the normal force of gravity (although a just-eaten curry can make it seem as though you are) and Pither Towers has yet to shoot off down the road in the early hours at anything even approaching the legal speed limit, let alone warp factor seven!
No, it's about as fucking informative as saying a certain type of comb or a particular coat hanger was developed by NASA. You comb your fucking hair. You hang your fucking clothes up. There aren't different ways of doing these things! You do them just the same en-route to Alpha Centauri as you do in your own grief hole.
It all started with Teflon, I seem to recall. We all ran out and bought "non-stick" frying pans after we were told that the Teflon-coated Apollo 11 capsule hadn't stuck to any other spacecraft when it went through the NASA drive-through car wash after the moon landing.
Tempur's website, would you believe, actually carries a logo bearing the legend "The only mattress and pillow recognised by NASA and certified by the Space Foundation". BIG FUCKING DEAL!!!! As Graham Taylor might say, "Does that not impress me!" Anyway, are they seriously trying to tell us that if Buzz Aldrin had taken his Woolworth's sleeping bag with him to the moon and Mission Control had found out they would have left him there? Bollocks.
"Aw, lads, lads! If I promise to sling it can I come back in?"
No, NASA can go to Grantham, along with Tempur mattresses.
1 comment:
Spleep??!!
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