Peackock tails and back-page tales

The tail of the peacock is a redoubtable example of the importance of sexual selection in forming the physiology of animals. The theory goes that the elaborate plumage of the male peacock developed first because the choice of partner rests mainly with the female. The male’s ability to produce and support a strong, colourful display implies health, or plentiful strengthm, or perhaps, indirectly, dominance of other males in the area.

Sexual selection in evolution is a curiosity, though. It develops over long periods of time into a form of evolutionary arms race, where increasing amounts of energy are expended by males in sustaining these elaborate and potentially debilitating sexual displays. However ridiculous the display, however, because it is an agreed sign, it continues to function effectively in promoting the male, and so, by permitting the showy male to father more offspring, the situation is perpetuated.

These thoughts were running through my mind, as they were no doubt yours, this morning in the papershop, when I noted the back page headline of The Sun:

Big Hits of the Seven Tease

Jaw dropped. Tumbleweed bounced past. Across the land, the sound of nobody laughing.

The story, it transpired, was that there had been a football match, in which the Woolwich Arsenal had beaten Everton FC by seven goals to nil. These things happen, and I’m sure everyone thought this was as notable an achievement as I did.

So what the hell was going on with the headline? Why the pun on ‘Big Hits of the Seventies’ (which does exist as a compilation album, but is hardly well-known)? I see where the ’seven’ comes from, but ‘tease’? Would a trouncing ever be considered a ‘tease’ if it didn’t help the pun home?

It’s not even a good pun, which, like a good crossword clue, should work on both the superficial and the cryptic levels. An example would be The Sun’s modern classic when Inverness Caledonian Thistle upset the mighty Celtic:

Super-caley-are-fantastic-Celtic-are-atrocious

So why, when they are capable of touching the heights of punnery, would The Sun’s subs allow such a stinker to be published?

The answer is because they have no choice. The laws of sexual selection in the Great British Tabloid mean that you must pun, because punning is what the readers expect. No matter that nobody in the country could possibly have even raised an internal smirk at this morning’s effort. Puns are the battleground; rather, they are the secondary sexual characteristics of the tabloid, and they must be as big and bold as possible.

No matter that they’re as debilitating, irrelevant and ridiculous as the largest peacock’s tail that you ever did see. It’s in the genes; and breeding will out in The Sun.