The R factor

Anyone seen the IT crowd? Probably not, but then again, you're probably normal. And what have I always said about normal people? They're idiots, of course. So, regardless of your views on the varying levels of idiocy in the massing public, or on the IT crowd, or whether you've even watched the IT crowd, I will continue, as I always do. Cue sighs.

Well, as is so rightly pointed out by Jen (Katherine Parkinson) in Calendar Geeks, the R factor is "Things that make you go Awwwww". It really should be Rrrrrrrr, I know, but what they said is what they said. Besides, Rrrrrr and Awwww sound quite similar. Ask the dinosaurs, a peace-loving era of pleasant yet slightly patronising reptiles, constantly mistook for mindless ravaging killers, all because of misinterpreted Awwws.

So yes, The R factor is stuff like naked calendars of unemployed men and old women from Devon, or that kid in Come Fly With Me who never gets to go to pilot school. But not Cats or Dogs. Never. The stinky, constantly excreting, evil, frankly scary things should be struck regularly, like gongs.

They've been here for centuries, carefully manipulating us until they're in a position to take over, while at the same time harnessing our technological advancement to have a cushier life. What was the first animal to orbit our planet in a space ship? A dog called Laika. To be fair, it died, but it must have been enjoying itself before it plummeted down to it's flattened doom. Serves it right, the malign canine.

Dogs and Cats are much scarier at eye level. I can just about deal with them when I tower over them like a towering thing, but when you've just fallen off your chair and a dog starts licking your face, you know what a terrifying death must feel like. Particularly drowning, this fellow was a bit over-keen on the saliva front.

I do not like Cats and Dogs, but I have a solution. Bring back our Awwwing friends the dinosaurs, who will find scaring them off quite easy, I'd assume. Then convince the dinosaurs that they have, in fact, been dead the whole time, and are just hallucinating future existence. Then, when they're busy trying to work out whether this is true, by nipping each other and the like, we should (as would be said on the Armstrong and Miller show) "KILL THEM".