Explosive Yield

I spent much of this morning teaching the Vicar’s budgerigar to say words such as “fuck” and “cunt”. He, in turn, taught me the budgerigar equivalents, and also instructed me in the best ways to wind up specific birds. Starlings, for example, apparently get very pissed off if you suggest that their mate might actually be incubating a cuckoo’s egg, while robins are easily provoked if you imply that they’re actually nothing more than sparrows with a crude paint job.

Anyway, fun though this was, we soon progressed to discussion of weightier matters. Specifically, Iran's efforts towards manufacturing a nuclear device and the implications for world peace. The budgerigar was quite concerned. I, however, felt more at ease with the situation.

The thing is, everyone always talks about a nuclear device in terms of its “yield”, which is expressed in Megatons or Kilotons. A one Megaton bomb, obviously, has the exact equivalent explosive force of a million tons of TNT. Why, then, if you set off a one Megaton bomb, does the World Community get really irritated, whereas if you drop a million tons of TNT on someone, no-one really gives a fuck? They’re both going to cause the same amount of damage, after all.

The budgerigar suggested that size is the real issue here. He said that, while a million tons of TNT is really massive, a nuclear device is small in comparison. Both, however, can do an equivalent job. To my mind, though, this is the exact same argument used by people with small dicks. It’s the “It’s not how big it is, it’s what you do with it” rationalization which I, personally, feel is a load of shit. Are nuclear-equipped countries really trying to tell us, “Yes, what we have is small, but we’ve never had any complaints.”?

Next, the budgerigar said that, because the nuclear device is small and compact, but offers all the performance and versatility of its larger counterpart, it's therefore deadlier. But surely this implies that a midget with an IQ equivalent to that of a normal-sized person is somehow deadlier than his taller opposite number. Or perhaps it’s an excuse to put brainy people who are shorter than 5 foot 8 into labour camps. It might actually be a good idea, when you consider it, but I wasn’t having a budgerigar tell me that.

I was going to feed him to the cat, but Cate suddenly returned and told me not to. I complied, of course, as I didn't wish to jeopardize my chances of a shag.