Episode 194 - Senses: Sight

Rod Stewart Sees in Black and White

This week we launch our brand-new series about the senses by confidently declaring sight the best one. Which is excellent news for everybody listening to our entirely audio-based podcast.

Before the science begins, one cat disappears, another rubs itself against Conor, David prepares to scream if either bites his legs, somebody kicks a box of Lego and a work desk is revealed to contain shower gel, Christmas decorations, a pizza cutter and a kazoo.

Then Prince George starting secondary school leads naturally to discreet police presences, David’s school in Basildon, missing knives, compulsory spoons, blancmange, bow-tie soufflés and the possibility that half of David’s year group could have been arrested pre-emptively.

Eventually we remember the eyes.

We learn about pupils, irises, rods, cones and the surprising visual limitations of Rod Stewart. Conor considers turning a glass eye into a glow-in-the-dark torch, David briefly loses track of both his glasses and a cat, and an innocent conversation about eye colour culminates in the two of us staring directly into one another’s eyes before saying “I love you.”

Then comes The Man with the Bionic Eyes and David’s new game Better or Worse, in which increasingly specific animals battle for supremacy using something called the critical flicker fusion rate.

Educational? Occasionally.

Visible? Absolutely not.