Food and Water For Thought

Professor Freud is attending a public lecture. He would have preferred company, but has been obliged to come on his own.

The lecture is in the Bradley Forum. The subject is Water Quality Management. It is quite well-attended.

Professor Freud sits in the third row on the side near the wall.

The lecture begins.

Professor Chris Saint is from Wales. He works for SA Water and is head microbiologist there. He explains that not all bacteria in water are bad, but many of them look alike. What to do?

He explains how he uses DNA to identify dangerous ones.

How clever, thinks Freud. That could work with people as well. But perhaps that has already been tested. I know I am out of the loop.

How pleasant it is to be again part of the intellectual community, Freud thinks to himself. He leans back in his chair and drifts off into a pleasant reverie.....

When Freud comes to, Professor Saint is explaining something important about something, perhaps blue green algae or protozoan parasites or cryptosporidium, using an egg his wife gave him for lunch. It is of course smaller than this, says the professor. But when it pops open there are four very unpleasant things inside. He puts the egg down on his desk......

What sort of a man doesn't eat the egg provided to him by his own wife for lunch? thinks Freud. If my wife had given me an egg and I had not eaten it there would have been an incident. I presume it is hardboiled, perhaps he will eat it  before he goes home. Then she will never find out......

Suddenly the egg begins to roll towards the edge of the desk behind which Professor Saint has been speaking.

The Head of  the Environment Department sitting on the front row catches it before it reaches the floor, and places it gently on the empty seat beside him.

At the end of the lecture, there are questions.

But Freud does not ask his.

Then there are nibbles and drinks. Three different cheeses, blue green ...cryptosporidium....and brie.

Freud tries a fig, and a nut.