Boom and bust

A late entry for the 2001 Nonsense on Stilts prize comes from the normally rational Save British Science.

Director Peter Cotgreave points out that the 100th anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi's first radio transmission from Britain to Canada happened only because of the excellence of the United Kingdom's research and finance base, thanks to which Marconi set up shop here instead of his native Italy.

Dr Cotgreave naturally goes on to point out the relevance of this insight to this week's research assessment exercise results. To those of us with shorter memories, Marconi will go on being the byword for corporate collapse induced by technological over-ambition.