“Welcome,” says our bespectacled host, Tess Daley, “To Strictly Come Philosophising”
The audience politely sit as the string quartet play two bars of the theme tune. Perhaps there’s a whoop from someone ecxitable who’s brought their own kitkat.
“And a big thank you to our professional philosophers for that spectacular opening dialogue on - the question of ‘morality in a presentist or eternalist universe’. We will be thinking about that for some moments.”
The co-host, and yes it would still be Claudia, pipes in.
“Yes indeed, maybe forever. Now, in last night’s special our couples delighted us with their routines, giving it everything from ‘the exercising of free will’ to ‘is our universe really just Plato’s cave?’…”
“From ‘determinism’ to ‘duality of meaning’…”
“… and a hilarious take on ‘what happens to your soul if you were to die in a Star Trek transporter beam’…”
The audience chuckle as though a member of the floor crew had just held up a massive board saying ‘Best medicine or social bonding construct?’
“Before we find out how you voted,” says Tess, “Let’s have a recap of how our… philosophising couples… did…”
Cue VT.
I think it could work you know. Celebrities, many of whom wouldn’t be used to thinking deeply about things, paired up with dusty academics who teach them philosophy for the benefit of the viewing public. Montages of the training room, Tricia complaining about how her head’s hurting while Jedward struggle with logical reasoning at the lecture theatre blackboard…
“So you’re saying all cows are brown?”
“Course I’m not saying that. I’m talking extra-pol-ation. Cows are clearly observed Edward…”
-
Tess: “The first couple to face the debate-off is…”
Strings, probably a long low cello. Candlelight flickers.
“Wayne Rooney and Professor Donahue from the University of Stuttgart!”
-
“Yeah you know like I had a feeling it’d be me, like, it’s fate or summit like that,” says Wayne. Professor Donahue clips her glasses back to the bridge of her nose.
“I’m so proud of zis man’s journey,” she says in a clipped kind of voice. “Now all we have to do is to go out there and give it the two hundred per cent on the Freudian notion of attraction yes?”
-
Well I’d watch it.
No comments:
Post a Comment