Johnny's Balls

Johnny Ball, children's entertainer, enjoyed a brief burst of rekindled minor list celebrity last week when he claimed that in the last couple of years, since he attacked global warming as false, his speech making invites have declined by 90%, allegedly because he had been targeted by environmental activists. His evidence of Green abuse? Someone (who MUST have been a green) tried to cancel one of his appearances. And, worse still, if you search his name on Google, apparently some of the results you get back contain pornography - yet more conclusive proof of ecologists up to their underhand tricks.

It is surprising that he might be surprised that a Google search on "Johnny Ball" might sometimes return something a bit salacious, especially if he has been searching under the "Images" option with "safe search" turned off. Rather than indulging him though, the Media might have just quietly filed his press release and determinedly NOT returned his calls - for his own sake.

His website boasts a recommendation from none other than the Sunday Times: "Johnny Ball's ability to make the obscure understandable has already been well proven"

CANCELLED

And yet,  if you read Johnny's pronouncements on climate change, you might see why if he was invited along to speak on the subject, he might not be asked back or recommended to other people, regardless of your views on man-made global warming. If someone did try to cancel one of his engagements, it was probably just a well-intentioned attempt to carry out an act of kindness for audience and presenter alike.

Because here, from The Guardian newspaper, is Johnny's clarification of his claim that every school in the country is indoctrinating schoolchildren to believe in false global warming. In an astounding rebuttal of climate change science, he presents precise, tightly argued and logical facts to back his case that it is all a lie used to brainwash kids:

"As I understand it, the Al Gore film (all schools plus the book) was found in an English court to be in serious error on eight or nine separate counts....Al Gore's statement that climate change might "Cause the Gulf Stream (discovered and named by Ben Franklin, don't you know) to switch off drastically effecting Britain and Europe.

Atmospheric Temperature changes cannot on a volume to volume comparison, effect the temperature of the Oceans by anything other than a minuscule degree. Transference of influence is far more likely the other way. However, although the temperature might change over time under fluctuating conditions, the only possible way to stop the gulf stream happening, is to stop the Earth Spinning - remember your school science? Bath water in the Northern Hemisphere goes clockwise, in the south, anti clock. This is clearly evident by the way the Earth was discovered by the early sailors, who could only go, down the coast of Europe, across and then down the east coast of S America, (on the anti clockwise tack) and so on.

I must confess that I have not seen Planet Stupid [sic]. But as far as I can gather, it is set around 2050, when the very sadly lamented Pete Postlethwaite appears to be the only man alive. That scenario is of dramatic effect, but is ludicrous in terms of the fluctuations in climate and conditions on Earth today.

So, on that basis, and much more evidence for which time and tiredness prevent me from going into here and now, the concept of, as Lord Stern keeps trying to sell us, that "the North Pole will be in fifty years, possibly the only place on earth capable of supporting human life."

The concept, if stated anywhere near close to what I have presented to you here, is absolutely preposterous."

So that's much clearer now. Thanks Johnny.

RIP Pete Postlethwaite, 7 February 1946 – 2 January 2011

The actor and environmental activist Pete Postlethwaite has died of cancer at just 64 years of age. His film career was rich and varied and whether watching "Brassed Off" with its wrath (and his passionate speech at the end) directed at the closure of the pits by an uncaring government, or his sinister turn in "The Usual Suspects", or his role as the custodian of humanity's decline in "Age of Stupid", he was always engaging and fascinating. His work was realistic without ever being mundane, often thought-provoking but still often entertaining. He navigated both the mainstream with appearances in movies like "Jurassic Park", "James & The Giant Peach" and TV series like "The Professionals" and "Sharpe", and the more specialist genres, such as "The Constant Gardener" with its anti-corporate theme and "In The Name of the Father" with its exposition of British involvement in Northern Ireland. He was in last year's blockbuster, "Inception". Outside films, he was also an accomplished stage actor, including recently as King Lear.

Suffice to say, having passed away all too early, he will be sadly missed by people from many walks of life. His activism was deep and genuine, void of courting the personal publicity that some thespians and other performers self-servingly seek about their "charity and campaigning" work. His "Age of Stupid", where he plays a custodian of the history of humanity looking back at our inability to save ourselves from self-destruction, will undoubtedly stand as a monument to both his acting and activism.

He will be missed, but not forgotten. And we have a chance still to look forward to enjoying a new performance from him one final time in April, in the film "Killing Bono".