I’ve just posted this to a mailing list, and since I’m rather proud of the gag I’m going to repeat it here:
> Was there no news, or is the great urban public waking up to wacky science?
Let’s not kid ourselves. The entire planet is watching football, which rather limits the range of stuff that can go in the front part of the papers – it’s a terrific experiment – and the EepyBird video which seems to have kicked all this off was stupendous.
Much as I’d love to walk down the street and see people filming experiments on every corner, I somehow doubt it’s going to happen. Hmm… shame, really, it’s rather an appealing image. Mind you, people would only complain:
“This neighbourhood’s gone downhill. Kids here used to be making cyclotrons and Gauss cannons, now it’s just nucleation and elementary surface physics. Next they’ll be into ghetto stuff – optical interferometry or – oh, mercy! – chemistry. If only they’d get off the streets and do something useful with their lives, like learn how to play World of Warcraft.”