We’ve all had enough of experts, but here’s one we should listen to. A breakthrough in mental medicine means there is now a sure-fire way to detect a psychopath.
“The diagnostic test is remarkably simple,” revealed brain scientist Prof Mick Stupp. “We have performed extensive and wide-ranging tests. Every subject displaying the classic signs of psychopathy will, without fail, wear a bobble hat without the bobble.”
Sounds implausible, but how does this tendency take root?
“It begins in childhood,” explained Prof Stupp. “Children form strong, even passionate attachments to items they connect to specific times, places and emotions. Remember being a kid, going out in the snow with your brand-new bobble hat on, then you lose that bobble? It cuts deep, and leaves a permanent scar.”
That makes perfect sense now. So a child will take its revenge upon the cruel world, which parted the bobble from the hat so traumatically?
“Exactly,” confirmed Prof Stupp. “It is a wound that never heals, instead it festers and feeds the child’s inner torment, which then manifests itself in full-blown psychopathy.”
What happens to the bobble?
“The bobble is locked away in a glass cabinet in the basement, with all the other bobbles, as evidence of the cruelty of the world, and justification for any acts which may follow.”
Prof Stupp disclosed that there is a Bobble Scale for psychopathic traits. One stored bobble means that there is hope for a return to normality. Two means that they can function normally but don’t get too close to them, and so on.
Most of the current Cabinet rate at least five bobbles. “Priti Patel buys bobble hats just so she can tear the bobble off,” said Prof Stupp. “Sajid Javid stepped down because he refused to follow suit. Jacob Rees-Mogg was always denied the pleasure of even owning a bobble hat, so that made him the man he is today.”
So next time you are at the cheese counter at Tesco’s, and encounter a shifty individual with a woolly hat lacking its bobble, let them go first. Or you might end up knocked out with a block of Black Bomber extra mature cheddar.