One of the most tangible effects of globalisation is, paradoxically, a sharp increase in the number of physical barriers springing up between countries around the world. A recent article in the Jerusalem Post by the Canadian journalist Gwynne Dyer identified a global epidemic of wall-building. Israel's new wall through the occupied West Bank—which adds to existing mined fences along its frontiers with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and around the Gaza strip—is, of course, well known. But similar projects are now under way in Thailand (which is sealing off its 47-mile frontier with Malaysia), India (which is securing its 1,864-mile border with Pakistan and its 2,050-mile frontier with Bangladesh) and China (which is keeping out North Korean refugees). The most assiduous barrier-builder, however, is Saudi Arabia. Along with the $8.5bn fence they are building along their Yemen border, the Saudis are now constructing a state-of-the-art wall guarding their frontier with Iraq, which will include face-recognition software and even automated weapons. All this makes Europe suddenly seem precariously open. Is it only a matter of time before the EU starts blocking off its land frontiers with countries like Russia and Turkey?
Hardy to beat
Prospect's competition for history's starriest pall-bearers has gone to the wire. In the red corner is Joshua Reynolds, who met his maker on the shoulders of three dukes, two marquesses, three earls, and a viscount. In the blue corner is tap dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, taken away in style by the talents of Joe Louis, Duke Ellington, Bob Hope, Joe DiMaggio and Irving Berlin. The winner? It has to be Robinson, who, we suspect, had one of history's hottest wakes. Thanks to Lars Anell and Michael Prodger.
Clive Crook
Barring a last-minute hitch, FT editor Lionel Barber will lure Clive Crook, former back-bone of the Economist, back to Britain. Clive has spent the last 18 months in the US with the Atlantic. Other comings and goings—Ben Rogers leaves the IPPR to become head of policy at Haringey council. And watch out for IPPR rising star Julia Margo, formerly of the Sunday Times, who is revving up the tank's journal, PPR. Along with the usual dusty academics, her new issue has a piece by celebrity columnist Jasper Gerard.
Equalities
Trevor Phillips's Commission for Equality and Human Rights—due to launch itself upon the world in October—is not getting off to a good start. The government's Equalities review, which was supposed to be a landmark investigation into various forms of discrimination and a launchpad for the new commission, has turned out to be a damp squib. Two members of the five-person panel left in the course of drawing the review up. And far from leading debate or shaping policy in the manner of Adair Turner's pensions review, or even John Hills's social housing review, the Equalities review was scarcely noticed. Equality is, admittedly, a more nebulous concept than pensions, but the review does not seem to have been properly thought through.
Time to burn the lab coats
My head was in the paper because of my involvement with Animal Farm, a new series on biotechnology I am co-presenting for Channel 4. The Times wanted to interview me, and asked if I'd pose for some photos. Sure, I said—as long as I didn't have to pose in a lab coat. I naturally did not expect my refusal would result in my head being spliced on to one.
The Times apologised, and assured me that it's not its policy to doctor photographs. But there's a bigger point here. The mischief typifies what's wrong with the way science is portrayed in the media. It's more than 15 years since I did the sort of experiment that needs a lab coat. Like many of my colleagues, I do my research in front of a computer. Yet the Times feels that to show a scientist, it has to show a lab coat.
It is not alone in its lab-coat fetish. Mark Miodownik, a materials scientist at King's College London, recently had a spat with a television company when he refused to wear a lab coat. They refused to film. The compromise was that one of Mark's colleagues put on a coat for the opening shots—and then removed it. I asked Mark why he cared. He said, "I wanted to appear as myself, not caricatured as a mad scientist. Science is a big part of our culture, and scientists should be seen as they are, not as actors in costume."
Most British people give up science at 16, and have little idea what scientists do. The popular image of scientists is of arrogant people doing sinister things in laboratories. Showing them in lab coats helps to perpetuate this.
In the 1960s, women burned their bras to protest against men looking at them as objects. Perhaps it's time for scientists to take their lab coats and a box of matches outside, and do the same.
Brown saved by the SNP?
As the campaign ahead of May elections in Scotland begins in earnest, predictions of a victory for the Scottish National party are beginning to harden. Ahead in the polls, and with a leader, Alex Salmond, far more charismatic than his Labour opponent Jack McConnell, the SNP could emerge as the largest party in the next Scottish parliament. A worrying prospect, one might think, for Gordon Brown, who would then be taking over as prime minister of a disunited kingdom—one from which his own country apparently wanted to defect. But Brown may yet be able to turn the SNP's triumph into an asset.
Salmond has pledged, within 100 days of coming to power, to introduce a white paper setting out the terms of a referendum on independence. This would be at best a consultative exercise, since only Westminster has the power to hold a full-scale referendum. But Brown could pre-empt the SNP by announcing that, in view of the Scottish results, he intended to stage his own referendum. He could then set about framing the questions himself. Instead of asking the Scots if they favoured independence, which just might elicit a "Yes," he could instead present a proposition such as, "Do you really want to leave the United Kingdom?"—almost certainly resulting in a "No." The electoral commission might have a view about which was the fairer question. But since any referendum bill would be in Brown's gift, not Salmond's, he would have the right to set its terms of reference—an excellent way of spiking the SNP's guns while presenting himself as the standard-bearer of a united Britain.
Open air theatre
What is London's most conservative theatre? Probably the Open Air Theatre, in Regent's Park, which turns 75 this year and has thrived on a diet of Shakespeare, children's shows and musicals. But is it now taking a risk with the appointment of Timothy Sheader as artistic director? Sheader is known to love musicals, which should stand him in good stead. But what about Shakespeare? Well, Sheader's one production in recent years was a curiously flat Twelfth Night at the Open Air in 2005. And as for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which the theatre stages every two years in three: "I've never directed it," says Sheader.
Unrepentant Fenian bastard
Their "Sniper at Work" T-shirt is no longer available, but Sinn Féin's online store still has plenty to satisfy the ardent republican. Alongside 130 Great Irish Ballads, visitors can treat themselves to a "Teach yourself the 1916 proclamation" CD, as well as "Keep Éire tidy (Brit troops out!)" T-shirts and the ever-popular "Unrepentant Fenian Bastard" mug. For the discerning shopper, however, the item of choice has to be their "Quality replica Irish road sign—pointing towards a 32-county united Ireland!" The actual direction in which the faithful should be guided is, naturally, left to the discretion of purchasers.
Anti-American Orange prize?
There is always a fuss when it is suggested opening up the Booker prize to Americans, the assumption being that US writers are so good that no one would be able to compete. Strangely, this issue never seems to arise with the Orange prize, which is open to all English-language novels by women published in Britain, including American ones. Perhaps this is because Americans don't do particularly well in the prize. Recent shortlists have been dominated by British authors, and this year's longlist of 20 contains only four American names. One of this year's Orange judges told Prospect: "I read a lot of unreadable American prize-winning fiction—this is what passes for great literature over there. They've got an inflated idea of their own greatness." Given this view, is it any wonder that the Yanks don't seem to stand a chance?
English language plc
"UK PLC," "public value," "city performance": think tanks have never shied from pushing business jargon into every nook of our political culture. But Demos has gone beyond the call of duty with its new pamphlet "As You Like It," which explores the status of English around the world and concludes that "where the UK once directed the spread of English, we are now just one of many shareholders in the asset that it represents." Quite when this stock was floated and how much of it we own, Demos doesn't say. Rumours that a private equity consortium wants to sell off the English language's verbs are as yet unsubstantiated.
Fiftieth anniversary blues
A 50th birthday can be an ambiguous milestone. Should the EU look backwards and bask in its achievements? Or confront a future that may be less rosy? (A third option is to look back from 20 years in the future, as Charles Grant does this month.) The ballyhoo surrounding the anniversary may actually have helped swing the recent ambitious EU deal on climate change. But we shouldn't get too sentimental. Take the recent tussle over the chairmanship of the European parliament foreign affairs committee. Since 1999, this position has been occupied by Elmar Brok, a rotund and popular German. But thanks to the elevation of another German to president of the parliament, Germany has slid down the rankings for choice of committee chairs, with a corresponding boost for Poland's centre-right MEPs. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a former Europe minister for Poland, duly declared his candidature for the foreign affairs post. There is, to say the least, a little history between these two nations. But now both are part of one happy EU family, few people expected such an assault on Brok's position. Moreover, Brok prides himself on being a Poland supporter and even has a picture in his office of Willy Brandt—not a normal CDU pin-up—at the monument to victims of the Warsaw ghetto. Saryusz-Wolski's move prompted a counteroffensive from the well-connected Brok. Angela Merkel called Warsaw to speak to the head of S-W's Civic Platform party, Donald Tusk. But she reckoned without the raucous, nationalist tone of Polish politics, which has made Tusk vulnerable to accusations that his family had ties to the Nazis. As he told Merkel, to intervene to help a German at the expense of a Pole would be political suicide.
