Boaty McBoatface was the name the public overwhelmingly voted for after the decision was thrown open to a competition. But as we know, Boaty McBoatface was the name they were denied by Science Minister Jo Johnson – who decided it was too silly for anything but a poxy midget submarine. The big ship, meanwhile, is going to be given a name that barely anyone wanted or asked for: RRS Sir David Attenborough.
Johnson is an ass. And a po-faced ass at that.
There are lots of reasons why he was quite wrong to diverge from the public’s preferred name. Here are some of them.
Johnsons are supposed to be funny
Even their name is a bit rude, sounding like a euphemism for the membrum virile, as Jo’s Classicist brother Boris would probably call it. Boris, sister Rachel and Dad Stanley understand it, even if Jo does not: the job of Johnsons is to add to the gaiety of nations not act like boring grown-ups with pokers up their arses. Jo’s decision was a betrayal of everything his family stand for.
It is unlucky to give ships male names
This is a fact. We once had a boat named John Peel. It sank. After that we gave our boats girls’ names, as is proper. Short of naming a boat RMS Titanic II, it’s hard to think of a better invitation to collision with an iceberg than calling your Arctic research vessel after a man.
Democracy, anyone?
Yet again the remote elite demonstrates its utter contempt for the masses by giving them the illusion of democratic choice – a free vote on the name of a ship which, after all, they have paid for out of their tax money – only to snatch it away from them when they make the “wrong” decision. This is just how the European Union conducts its referendums – so perhaps we shouldn’t be at all surprised that, unlike his big brother Boris, Jo Johnson is very much a “Remain” man.
On at least two occasions, he has prostituted his ministerial prestige to argue that Britain should remain shackled to the EU corpse – alleging that it would threaten Britain’s financial sector and that it would damage UK science. Neither claim bears the slightest scrutiny. Tosser.
Boaty McBoatface was the perfect Wankers’ Litmus Test
No seriously. I checked on Twitter. When Boaty McBoatface won the competition, you could scarcely move for tweets from pompous, self-righteous gits telling anyone who’d listen how disgusted they were that so frivolous a name had been picked, and what did this tell us about the state of modern Britain that a vessel conducting research so magisterially important could be treated so lightly by the common herd, etc. And every one of them was a wanker.
Read the rest at Breitbart.
