The kilogram is losing weight. Despite the fact that it never leaves a secure safe in Paris, the 90 per cent platinum and 10 per cent iridium cylinder created in 1889 as the standard definition of a kilogram has lost around 50 micrograms since being cast. No one knows why, but more importantly, no one can come up with a better way of defining the kilo, the only one of physics's seven base units to be defined in reference to a material artefact rather than a fundamental constant (like the speed of light, used to define the second). An Anglo-American-French team is trying to crack the problem by defining the kilo with reference to the electro-magnetic force needed to counterbalance it; meanwhile, a German-Japanese group is valiantly attempting to produce a perfect 1kg sphere of silicon with a specific number of atoms. But neither is having much luck.
Can Brian Eno topple Blair?
Rock music's top public intellectual, Brian Eno, has got it in for Tony Blair. Eno was so enraged by the politics of the Iraq war that he became a leading member of the group attempting to impeach the prime minister. With that initiative stalled, Eno has been dreaming up another plan. The latest idea is to run a "white suit," you-lied-to-the-people, Martin Bell-style candidate against Blair in his own Sedgefield constituency. Not a chance, you might assume, as Blair represents one of the safest Labour seats in the country. You are probably right. But… the Eno plan entails trying to persuade the Tory and Liberal Democrat candidates to stand down in favour of his white suit candidate. In 2001, Blair's vote was just over 26,000 (7,000 fewer than in 1997) and the combined Tory and Lib Dem vote was just over 12,000. So if all those non-Labour votes did transfer to the white suit, only 7,000 Labour voters would need to defect for Labour to be re-elected without Blair as prime minister—the dream of Eno and many other anti-war Labour voters. And who is to say there aren't that many disgruntled Labour voters who think that globe-trotting Blair hasn't been worrying enough about their council tax bill?
Eno, who says he is in talks with more than one plausible candidate, stresses that his white suit will back Labour in the Commons if elected, and then bow out as soon as convenient.
Where intellectuals matter
Unsettling news from China, where a home-grown version of Prospect's list of top public intellectuals has ruffled some bureaucratic feathers. Last October, the Guangzhou-based Southern Weekend, China's highest-circulation weekly, published a supplement with its list of China's 50 top public intellectuals, citing Prospect as inspiration. The list sparked immediate debate, with some of the names laughing the whole thing off (sounds familiar) and others publishing alternative lists. But soon the government got wind, and weighed in with its own contribution. In late November, the publicity department, which oversees state propaganda, decreed that media were to refrain from reports on "public intellectuals." At the same time, the party's People's Daily reprinted a fiery article from Shanghai's Liberation Daily denouncing "local media" for their "ridiculous imitation" of Prospect, declaring that "Chinese history shows that intellectuals only fully express their talents and attain socially eminent positions when they follow the route of the Communist party," and warning that the intellectuals should "not be treated lightly." Three weeks later, three prominent government critics were taken in for questioning and told their writing was illegal.
EU superstate
As we know, it is a complete myth, peddled by perfidious Europhobes, that a European superstate is being built in Brussels. But just to avoid any misunderstandings, it might be advisable for the European commission to think again about giving bumper stickers with the slogan "Europe, my country" to journalists renewing their press accreditation. With a lot of delicate referendum campaigning going on, somebody might get the wrong idea.
McEwan news
When Ian McEwan appeared on the principal BBC evening news at the end of January, talking about his new novel Saturday, Boyd Tonkin noted the quirk in the Independent: the item ran "not because [the book] grabbed a gong or stirred a quarrel or triggered a fatwa, but simply because a novelist had brought out a landmark work." When did a literary author last make a lead BBC news item to discuss his new book? An extra culture shift to add to McEwan's gearbox, surely.
Undiplomatic Gordon Brown
Is Gordon Brown making a clever bid to persuade Tony Blair that he would be a useless foreign secretary? Despite the feel-good rhetoric, February's G7 development summit was a flop. John Snow, US treasury secretary, didn't show up, and every-one from the Japanese to the Canadians had problems with Brown's package. As with "ethical foreign policy," is Gordon raising unrealistic expectations on aid that, as the FT argued, face a "train crash" in July when a deal should be finalised?
