Thursday, February 12, 2009

Happy Charles Darwin/Abraham Lincoln day!

It's their joint 200th birthday today, you know. And while some might say Darwin is better than Lincoln because he appears on the £10 note, worth roughly three times as much as Lincoln's puny $5 bill, others might argue that Lincoln is better because he's probably going to be on those unimaginative Americans' money forever, while Darwin's about due to be replaced by some other notable dead person.

Anyway, this gives me an idea. I could secure my legacy as a famous person forever by simply sharing my birthdate with someone more famous! That way, whenever his birthday is celebrated with a BBC2 evening of programmes, there'll always be a passing mention of "funnily enough, world memory champion Ben Pridmore was born on the very same day!" That's the only reason anyone's ever heard of John Major, you know - Eric Idle tribute programmes.

Trouble is, nobody who shares my birthday has yet achieved any real degree of fame. The best that 14/10/76 currently has to offer is Henry Mateo, Dominican minor-league baseball player whose wikipedia article is even more skimpy than mine and can't even decide whether he's a shortstop or a second-baseman. I suppose it's still possible he could become the next Joe DiMaggio, but I think we should pin our hopes on some currently obscure 32-year-old suddenly achieving superstardom. Come on, all you Zoomy-birthday people out there, get famous! And quick!

2 comments:

Mike said...

The queen is clever like that. She has 2 birthdays to double her chances of sharing her birthday with someone famous.

Anonymous said...

It's ironic how one man inadvertently lessened institutional racism, and the other gave 'scientific' justification for it.