One awakes this morning — against one's better judgement, frankly, given the persistent chill and the regrettable state of the domestic plumbing — to news of a distant star. 'S301', they call it, or some such uninspired designation, allegedly hurtling about a colossal gravitational sinkhole. The boffins at that Swiss establishment, CERN or whatever they're styling themselves this week, are, we are told, quite beside themselves.
It is, naturally, 'unprecedented'. Everything is 'unprecedented' these days, isn't it? One recalls the unprecedented dampness in the Hambry archives last spring, a far more pressing concern for those of us who have to work in them, yet somehow less deserving of the breathless prose now being expended on this latest celestial blur. 'Tests of gravity', 'limits of relativity' — the usual academic palaver, trotted out with the tired enthusiasm of a particularly dreary Punch and Judy show.
Then, of course, the actual utility of this cosmic dart emerges, rather swiftly, much like a cockroach from beneath a newly lifted paving slab. Our own diligent — if occasionally overzealous and rather too loud — chaps in the newsroom have unearthed the rather less glamorous truth: this entire astronomical kerfuffle is, in essence, a particularly elaborate begging bowl. Not for new insights into the fabric of the cosmos, you understand, but for 'decades of future funding' and, one notes with a distinct lack of surprise, 'international travel for senior figures'.
Ah, international travel. The enduring lure. One remembers the budget cuts of '97, when a trip to Birmingham for a particularly grim council meeting was deemed an unacceptable extravagance. Yet, a jaunt to the Antipodes for a conference on, say, the migratory patterns of a particularly obscure dust mite, is always somehow 'essential'. It truly is remarkable how quickly the universe expands when there's an airfare involved.
It hardly requires a crystal ball, or indeed, any form of higher education, to observe this pattern. A 'breakthrough' is announced, usually involving something entirely beyond the comprehension or immediate relevance of the average taxpayer, then swiftly followed by the quiet assertion that this 'groundbreaking work' cannot possibly continue without a rather substantial injection of public funds. One covered the 'discovery' of a particularly inert form of plankton in '88, which, if memory serves, also required a substantial new research facility and several 'observational' trips to the Caribbean. The plankton, I believe, remains quite inert.
So, another star. Another opportunity for the chaps in the white coats to secure their emoluments and per diem. One simply must applaud the sheer, relentless predictability of it all. As for gravity, one rather suspects it will continue to operate as it always has, quite irrespective of whether some academic in Geneva gets his extended sabbatical to Tenerife. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe there's a draft from the window. The more pressing concerns, as ever, remain closer to home.
