Day 15 - In Like Flynn

And so, we enter a new phase of the competition... our very first (and possibly last) Theme Week.

The rules are simple - each lab chooses a theme for the day, the contestants try and pick a T-shirt to match that theme, and can put their case to the judges. Top points awarded for the T-shirt that best matches.

It was a toughie to start the week - Lab 306 had chosen Macho as their theme. I searched high and low for my Muscle Beach tee, but I must have lent it to one of my body-building mates... funny, I thought it was too big for any of them. Anyway, King Pete turned out in his Zambezi Whitewater Rafting T-shirt - evidence of a life of derring-do - and regailed us with stories of falling in amongst baby crocodiles. Sorry Pete, but baby crocs don't cut it... real men swim with the grown-ups! MonkeyMagic had a beer T-shirt, trying to convince us that he drinks like a man. But we suspect the slogan 'Biere blanche de Namur. Hm!' translates as 'after half a lager shandy, I giggle like a schoolgirl'. I dug deep and found a 'shirt from the archives. An old tour T-shirt (in surprisingly good nick) from late 80's rock band 'the Dogs D'Amour' emblazoned with the name of their single 'Errol Flynn' across the front. And why is this macho? Firstly, it has a man swinging on a chandelier on the front and a pirate ship on the back. How manly is that? But mostly, because Errol Flynn represents all that is masculine. After all, Flynn 'defined a male archetype and forever set his mark on movie maleness, in fact, created a constellation of manly virtues that even today is the stuff of dreams' as is eloquently-described in the website In Like Flynn. In fact even the phrase 'In Like Flynn' refers to his manly prowess.

So it was with good grace that the other two competitors gave way to Errol who justly received 3 points for his efforts. Zambezi got 2 points for underwater exploits, although the judges did feel that Pete's admission that it was the most scared he had ever been in his life 'a bit girly'. And Nick came in last place although his tee was deemed 'desirable'. The end of an exciting day's contest methinks, and looking forward to the considerable challenge tomorrow when the theme is 'Immunology'.