WEIRD SCIENCE
four writers invent one thing
the world really needs.
By
Eleanor
Robertson
If I could invent one thing,
it would be an incredibly
large, bejewelled sword that
grants the power to drink beers
without getting a hangover.
On one level, this needs no
explanation. Who wouldn’t want
a huge, glittering weapon that
made dusty Sundays a thing of the
past? If you saw one on the side of
the road, you’d pick it up. If you
got one in the office Secret Santa,
you wouldn’t swap with the guy
who got a novelty stress ball shaped
like the poop emoji. In both these
situations, most people’s response
would be to shotgun a beer while
waving the sword around like a
demented King Arthur cosplayer,
screaming, “I am the once and
future king of all brewed alcoholic
drinks!” and “Catch me doing
yoga at 7.30am tomorrow, you
puny, liver-bound wowsers!”
The power to avoid hangovers is
something humanity has sought
ever since we went rooting around
in piles of fermenting fruit,
desperately trying to get enough
of a buzz to forget the cosmic
injustice of mortality. Every
alcohol-drinking society has
hangover cures, ranging from
the medieval European concoction
of raw eel and bitter almonds to the
Ancient Roman practice of eating
fried canaries. According to my
research, the best remedy is a bacon
and egg roll washed down with a
litre of coconut water, followed
by a few hours of begging your
housemate or partner to smash your
skull apart with a tyre iron. And
even this has only a modest effect.Given this long struggle against
the demon drink, it seems natural
that I would invent a hangover-
curing device. What the people
want, the people get. If I were
in charge of a primary school, I
would put Coke in the bubblers.
Some say this makes me a sleazy
populist, concerned only with
satisfying the basest desires of the
crowd, and maybe that’s true. But
with the assistance of my sword,
I would be able to drink away
the sorrows caused by this insult
at no cost to my own health.Why an incredibly large,
bejewelled sword, rather than a
more mundane object? Why not
a small plastic horse figurine,
or a poster for the 1984 movie
Gremlins, that performed the same
function? Because swords are cool.
Deep down, everyone wants to
own a cool sword they could use to
behead members of the royal family
for spurious, politically motivated
reasons. This desire persists even
though swords are very expensive,
bulky to store in an average-sized
home, and strongly associated withweird video game nerds. In fact,
the more I think about how much
I want a huge, shiny sword with
an emerald the size of a hen’s
egg embedded in the hilt, the
less I even care that it can also
miraculously cure hangovers.Imagine how cool it would be
to turn up to a house party
where you didn’t really know
anyone, with your impressive,
hangover-curing sword strapped
to your belt. I can already feel
my social anxiety melting away!
Can’t think of anything to say
except, “Uhh, so what do you do?”
No worries! You’ll have a line five
people deep waiting to ask why
you have a lethal, technologically
obsolete piece of warfare
weaponry hanging around your
waist. “Well,” you’ll say, sipping
your de-fanged beer, “it actually
cures hangovers.” Proposals of
marriage will surely follow.The only downside I can see
here is that some jealous haters
might try to steal my sword. So
be it. Swords with mysterious
properties are naturally inclined
to be stolen, offered as prizes
for impossible quests, and
hidden away for hundreds of
years, only to be unearthed by
plucky young upstarts unable
to comprehend the true scope
of their powers. As long as I go
down in the myths as a formidable
sorceress able to drink more than
three beers in the course of a
night, I say: come what may.writers’ piece