In a recent announcement from the Department of Health and Social Services the cripplingly ugly of Northern Ireland are to be provided with Ferraris on the Motability Scheme.
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Now available from your local DHSS office. |
A recent study by the British Journal of Psychology has shown that whilst men are largely indifferent as to what kind a vehicle a woman drives so long as she is marginally attractive, a woman's opinion of a man will rise significantly if he has a nice car.
Hundreds of passers-by in Cardiff city centre were asked to rate the attractiveness of a young man or woman portrayed in a photograph sitting in a car. Male participants all rated the same woman, and female participants all rated the same man. Crucially, half the participants saw the man or woman sat at the wheel of a Ford Fiesta whilst the other half saw the man or woman sat at the wheel of a Bentley Continental (worth a cool £75000, approximately, at the time of testing).
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Even Steve Buscemi would get a jump in a Ferrari. |
Pilot research had established that, against a blank background, the photographed man and woman were perceived as equally attractive by the opposite sex (both scoring approximately mid-way on an attractiveness scale) and also that male and female participants didn't differ from each other in the aesthetic ratings they gave to the two models of car. The stand out message from the research proper, however, is that the man was rated as significantly more attractive when he was seen sat in the Bentley rather than the Fiesta, whereas the woman's perceived attractiveness was unaffected by the car she happened to be sitting in. Of course, Fiestas are not commonly known for their sex appeal.
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Only the raw sex appeal of Jay Leno is immune to the Fiesta. |
This finding appears to support prior research showing that in cultures all round the world, heterosexual women are attracted to men with greater status and resources, whereas heterosexual men tend to be attracted to women who appear youthful and fertile... apparently science felt the need to explain this.
Health Minister Michael McGimpsey explains his department's move to WNN:
"By and large the people of Northern Ireland aren't pretty. I myself look in the mirror every morning and think to myself that someone up above must really have a grudge against me. It's just by sheer dumb luck coupled with startling ingenuity that we have managed to survive this long, and therein lies the problem. Some of our brightest minds have a face only a mother could love, and then only from a distance, and unfortunately are being driven from the gene pool in favour of more attractive but cripplingly stupid idiots. It is with this in mind that my department has come up with this scheme to help keep our learned mongoloids breeding."
The department presented us with plenty of literature to explain the move to place the hideous on the disabled driver scheme, we've pulled the following example to help best explain their intentions:
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Typical man on the street. |
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The same man, next to a Ferrari. |
It remains to be seen whether or not this will help the breeding prospects of our cripplingly ugly, but we have no doubt that this will provide ample opportunity for the Stephen Nolan Show to get folk wound in a furore about something.