Picking sides and jellyfish aliens

My theory is that we are all in the business of picking a side. With any competition or conflict – weird Olympic event between two random countries, gameshow, war - we pick a side. And there are lots of ways in which we do this – maybe this golfer is more attractive than the others, or that reality show contestant seems to be the underdog. But, all other things being equal, we go for the person or side who is closest to us. Obviously we root for our cousin in the talent contest or our county’s Tiddleywinks team. But it goes further… we will pick the anglophone Australians against the Argentines and, in the nature documentaries, we side with monkeys against hyenas, with mammals against reptiles, with lizards against snakes…

My point? My point is that Richard Barnes would have to be competing against a jellyfish alien from the planet Zog before we sided with him on anything.