The comfort of academia or "They are bloody mammals"

I watched QI this evening, a program who’s overtones of Oxbridge and relish of obsure knowledge give me a warm fuzzy feeling. The music alone is akin to a fix – an academia fix. I would almost rate it as high as warm socks on the “making the world feel sensible” scale. Like old polished lab benches, and absurdly steep lecture theatres. And college ties. Probably explains why the closer I get to graduating, the more I’m keen to stay at college…

Anyway, on tonight’s programme Stephen stated that marsupials are not mammals. I immediately exclaimed “they bloody are mammals!” rather loudly, no doubt to the concern of my housemates. There are five chordate classes – fish, birds, reptiles, amphibia and mammals. Of the mammals there are three subclasses; placental mammals, marsupials and monotremes. This glaring error distracted me for about 10 minutes. I may have to email and complain, but I do rather like Stephen Fry, so might let them get away with it. I’m sure there are many other anal retentives watching who will email in to correct the error.

Oh, and if you want the theme tune to make you feel warm and fuzzy too, it’s for download on the BBC QI page.