Why, The Chicken Did (Did Not! Did Too!)

The Metro stikes again!

For those of you who don't know what the Metro is, a little explanation: here in the UK, we have what is perhaps the most unreliable public transport infrastructure in the world entire. Picture the scene with me. You've got an important appointment in town, such as (it so happens) I did a few days ago. Your significant other has the car - she commutes to work, you see - and no matter how many delicious home-cooked meals you promise her, she's not coming home just to give you a ride, you lazy git you.

So you resign yourself to relying on public transport. At which point the voice of public transport - gruff and harassed and abrupt, I imagine it sounds a bit like Russell Crowe forced to engage in the art of conversation - comes booming out of the slightly overcast skies. And it says: You want a bus? Well, you can't have this one. Nope, nor this one. Why not try a train? Oh, it's been cancelled because the cloud cover looks a bit thick? Well, hell with you then. Thanks for playing!

To make up for its fundamental rubbishness, the king of public transport has ordained that those people who are (air-quotes) "lucky" enough to score a ride get a free newspaper. That's the Metro. It's basically a greatest hits of early editions; stories either pulled from other sources or hashed together by hack journalists. You don't want to read the Metro. Really, you don't. But it's free, it's right there - PLEASE TAKE ONE stamped on the blue aluminium boxes - and it's better, surely, than making eye contact with the great unwashed. So you browse your complimentary copy of The Metro and ditch it at the first possible opportunity. Very occasionally you learn a thing. The odds are about the same as winning the lottery, but from time to time, it happens.

A few days ago, then, the Metro ran a story about the chicken and the egg. (I know it hit MSNBC too - God alone knows where it started.) You know... that eternally baffling question - "which came first?" - and apparently it's been answered, once and for all. For definite this time. Here's the scoop.

Spoilers: it was the chicken.

But this is The Speculative Scotsman, not its sister site The Agricultural American, and here we pride ourselves on looking at all things through a thick veneer of cynicism. So. Has one of the world's greatest and most alluring mysteries been solved?

No.