Cliff Arnall is full of [redacted due to a request from Cliff Arnall]

Back in January, I emailed Cliff Arnall, asking him to quantify his 'equation' proving that 24th January was the most miserable day of the year. His equation didn't scan, wasn't formatted correctly and was full of unquantifiable factors like "the need to take action" and others that were quantifiable in different manners, like "time since Christmas" (in scientific terms, that should be measured in seconds, but there's no mention of the scale used in his PR exercise in-depth scientific research.

The part-time lecturer didn't respond.

And now, today, I find he has another of his magical scientific 'equations' published on the BBC News website, who now credit him as a professor, (Note: I complained about getting this fact wrong, and they changed it - but they didn't when I complained about using the made-up plural 'octopi', which means they put facts ahead of grammar. And yes, I'm a sad bastard for complaining on both counts.) and - surprise, surprise - it's as comple bollocks again.

The equation Dr Arnall devised to find the happiest day, in work commissioned by ice cream maker Walls, was O + (N x S) + Cpm/T + He.

Within that, O stands for being outdoors and outdoor activity, N for nature, S for social interaction, Cpm for childhood summers and positive memories, T for temperature and He for holidays and looking forward to time off.

Okay Cliff. What is a unit of measurement for "positive memories"? Is the temperature in Celcius or Kelvin? How should one represent "looking forward to time off"?

His incredible scientific proof says today is the happiest day of the year. Tell that to the people who've lost everything in the torrents at Glastonbury, or the people recovering from being trapped in a train for hours on end.

A quick Google "Cliff Arnall" returns a pile of results to do with his previous press releases, and little else. In it, I discovered another one of these bloody equations of his, this time proving that May 18th is a great day for New Year's Resolutions.

His official formula of positivity reads, M x O + BH/(H+R) x S.

And it translates as, motivation (M) multiplied by opportunity (O) plus bank holiday proximity (BH) over increased hours of daylight (H) plus reflection of time (R) multiplied by success (S).

Once again Cliff, do tell how you reach this formula. Quantify everything. Show us your notes. Prove that you do more than send out a press release every so often, saying, "Hey, look at me, I'm GREAT because I can prove without a shadow of a doubt that this day coming up is the best day to attempt home waxing!"

Or... why not work out - scientifically, mind - the best date to [redacted] yourself through the [redacted] with a [redacted]. And then prove it. And leave off the sub-GCSE pseudo science, Scientologists do it better.

Update: Following some boo-hooing from Mr Arnall himself, upset that Googling his name found this blog entry at the top and the title saying he was full of something unpleasant, I've been a gentleman and voluntarily redacted some words which, if his story is true and he doesn't want his kids to see people being mean about him in a crude way, should be enough. However, for us grown-ups who suspect it's more likely that a new ego-placating puff-piece is on its way, the content still makes clear my impression of Cliff's previous masterpieces of bad science and unquantifiable maths. My money's on the next equation including the viscosity of angel tears in a vacuum and the sense of foreboding to two decimal places.