It never fails to surprise me how random the process can be that gives me my need to rant.

This afternoon I was on an errand for my Mum. Not a usual errand I have to say.

My Mum is in dispute with her local council over the safety of the road crossing on the route she takes to her local supermarket. At a particular point the path disappears and she finds her self catapulted among articulated lorries and assorted motor vehicles. She remonstrated with some officials who were of the opinion that she should use the perscribed crossing points further along the road. My Mother's argument is that it is a significantly longer route and at her age ever yard saved is vital.

So with my new GPS enabled smartphone I went about measuring the distances involved and came up with some surprising answers. The recommended journey was indeed 200 metres longer. A whopping 40%. The surprising bit was the longer journey was only 30 seconds longer - I can't remember ever covering 200 metres that quickly since I was 15!

anyway I was also listening to the radio and heard a couple of things that made me get a bit - go on guess, yes a little cross.

First up was a piece about how some research was suggesting that route cause of many of today's chronic illnesses was laid down by our grandparents and two generations later we are feeling the effects. There were several things that grabbed me. One was that the learned professor interviewed seemed, to my ears, to be saying that acquired characteristics were being passed on to our offspring. This was one of the holy commandments of genetic science when I last bothered to listen that acquired traits did not get passed on to offspring. It was the offspring best able to survive that passed on their genetic code and therefore over generations useful genes were promoted and unhelpful ones went the way of the Dodo - they died out. I couldn't believe my ears. I admit I didn't get the start of the article so I will have to research a bit to find out whether my incredulous ears were right.

I bet Darwin had to deal with a lot of buffoons like me though.

The second thing that really blew my gasket, and I really heard this, was that as a result of Professor Brainstorms theory he supposed that the reason the North East of England was so ill with diseases like heart disease was that all their grandparents suffered badly during the great depression. And they did. But the reason everyone up here in the north has heart disease is more likely due to the fact that they smoke, eat a REALLY poor diet and do no exercise save for the Great North Run every year. I would like to take a very large bet that their lifestyles are far more responsible than what happened 70 years ago.

I will not get into the amount of studies done that show populations that move from one area to another e.g. migrate to another country, take on the new environments disease portfolio within two generations!

I could go on but I won't in fact what I would really like to know is what moron at the BBC decided professor brainstorm was worth giving airtime to!

I have exhausted myself with that tirade so I will save the news about changes to banking and my bad tempered attitude on it to another day.