NEWTON'S OPTIC:
THE DEPARTMENT of Health will
begin receiving submissions today on the feasibility of burying
bungalows underground, writes
Newton Emerson.
The move follows outrage over plans to build more lines of bungalows across the countryside. Although there is absolutely no scientific proof that bungalows cause health problems, there is also no absolute scientific proof that bungalows do not cause health problems, leading to widespread fears of health problems.
Some people who live near bungalows do become ill, and while this is statistically indistinguishable from the number of people in general who become ill, that does not rule out the risk of one of these people being wheeled out at a press conference.
Anti-bungalow campaigners point to the work of Dr Grant Hunt, author of the 1992 research paper, Interaction of Single-Storey Dwellings and Tin-Foil Hats, as the basis for their concerns. Dr Hunt theorised that bungalows disturb the visual field up to a distance of two miles, causing symptoms ranging from nausea to severe depression.
His breakthrough discovery that newspapers have a far lower standard of proof than peer-reviewed journals led directly to the construction of his own six-bedroom bungalow with double garage and UPVC conservatory. Other scientists have since admitted that they can never disprove a non-falsifiable conjecture, which proves that they are involved in a massive international cover-up.
Opinion differs over the precise mechanism by which bungalows affect human health, assuming that they do affect human health, which has not been proven to not be the case. It is possible that a high frequency of bungalows arranged in lines across the countryside could induce inverse brainwaves, causing all thoughts to cancel out.
In addition, exposure to repeating patterns of bungalows may cause fits of indignation. Lack of exercise due to lack of stairs is another commonly cited danger.
North East Buried Bungalows, an underground pressure group, believes that the unknown mechanism of the unproven effect also causes headaches, earaches, man-flu, attention deficit ignorance disorder, dropsy, itchy leg syndrome and hair loss. Although there is no evidence for any of this, a spokesman for North East Buried Bungalows warned The Irish Times that questioning irrational health fears was "just like mocking the disabled".
There is further disagreement over the practical benefits of burying bungalows. Building below ground can cost 20 times more than building above ground and this is difficult to justify without knowing the exact mechanism of the unknown effect.
Burial will make no difference unless the phenomenon is purely visual, as a bungalow built under a field has exactly the same environmental impact as a bungalow built in a field.
Assuming there is an effect on human health, which has not been proven to not be the case, the effect is potentially greater from a buried bungalow because it is possible to walk right over it.
However, a spokesman for North East Buried Bungalows warned The Irish Times that raising this point at all was "clearly racist".
Government sources say that solving the dispute is now a matter of vital importance.
"We need more lines of bungalows across the countryside to stabilise our network of people who build bungalows across the countryside," a Fianna Fáil councillor explained. "It would be very dangerous to just ignore these people," he added.
"They have a sickening amount of power."