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Just don’t ask Nuclear Electric about the dome. You know, the one on
top of the reactor building for Sizewell B which was swung into place a
couple of months ago amid great publicity. Now it turns out that the proceedings
were not such a success after all. Welds on the dome’s steel panels have
failed (basically because the panels have been mismatched) and the welding
has had to be done all over again. The entire construction contract for
Britain’s first pressurised-water reactor has been put back by two weeks.
And since you’re asking, no, Nuclear Electric is not arranging great publicity,
press trips to see the new welding or coverage on national television.

* * *

It just goes to show that a nuclear station’s life is never dull. Take
Sizewell A, the ageing Magnox plant beside which Sizewell B is rising. Staff
from the station were called out on a bizarre emergency, so the latest annual
report of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Pollution reports.

They rushed over to a site outside Ipswich, 30 kilometres away, after
the local police activated the National Arrangements for Incidents Involving
Radioactivity (known to acronym aficionados as NAIR). Quantities of radioactive
uranium and thorium had been found in a warehouse.

It turned out that the man who had been renting the property had accumulated
large stocks of laboratory and other chemicals, many toxic and corrosive,
some radioactive. The man disappeared. The landlord turned up at the warehouse
intending to seize goods to make good the rent arrears. The landlord took
one look and called the police. Who called Sizewell A. Which alerted the
Health and Safety Executive and HM Inspectorate of Pollution. Which brought
in experts from Harwell. Bear all this in mind if you are offered cheap
uranium from an unusual source.

* * *

Feedback clearly owes its readers an explanation. An item in the 28
September issue related how 19 sheets of A4 paper faxed from London came
out in Australia at a length of 53 feet. Since then, there has been a deluge
of letters (well, a deluge so far as letters to Feedback go) doubting the
mathematical ability of Feedback, New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ and, even more unfairly,
Australian mathematicians in general. The operative phrase here is ‘came
out’. Here’s a clue: the Australian fax machine was working perfectly.

* * *

Open the door to market forces, and even stranger powers muscle their
way in. Ever since Mikhail Gorbachev launched glasnost, the Soviet Union
has been swept by an enthusiasm for the paranormal. The TV ratings (the
term is used loosely) are dominated by programmes on psychic healing, and
independent and mainstream newspapers alike titillate their readers with
such headlines as ‘Did UFOs monitor Sakharov’s funeral?’ and ‘Psychic tattooing
by extraterrestrials’. Now the normally staid columns of the Workers’ Tribune
have carried the sensational claim by a group of biologists from the Yakut
division of the Soviet Academy of Sciences: they say they have seen a ‘monster’
in Lake Khayyir.

Yakutia is one of the remotest lands within the Russian Federation,
and is best known (up until now, at any rate) for its gold and diamond mines.
The landscape is either actual permafrost or a grim patchwork of swamp and
lakes formed by the permafrost melting. And in one of these lakes (small
by Loch Ness standards, only 600 metres long), the scientists say they saw:
a small head, a long serpentine neck, a huge bluish-black body, a dorsal
fin, a long tail . . .

Authenticity is added by the revelation that this is not the first sighting.
The paper notes that 51 years ago two air force pilots observed two huge
unknown beasts in the lakes (which prudently dived when the airmen flew
lower to investigate). And now proof positive: the locals are said to avoid
the lake.

Has anyone checked the Kremlin yet for ley lines?

* * *

Solved at last, the riddle of the sphincter. Henry Welcome designed
the rectal suppository in 1893 with, as every true European knows, a ‘torpedo’
shape. He thought, and so, according to a survey, did 80 per cent of lay
and medical people alike, that the best method of insertion was pointed
end first. It just shows how wrong common sense can be, according to the
authors of a recent report in the Lancet.

In tests, 60 lay adults and the parents of 40 children found it easier
to get the suppository to stay in when inserted flat end first, by a margin
of 98 to 2. This outcome accords fully with modern understanding of sphincter
physiology, the report’s authors assure us.

* * *

Now, for some, the good news: winners of Feedback’s summer competition
to write fictional acknowledgements along the lines of ‘Einstein – I would
like to thank my relatives’. The initially slack entry was boosted by a
heart-rending plea last month for more, and since then a metaphorical sackful
has descended. Here are, in no particular order, the four lucky (sorry,
skilful) winners, who each receive £10.

The best of the many fine theoretical physicists: ‘Erwin Schrodinger
– Notional thanks to the National Anti-Vivisection Society Ltd for their
possible accreditation. (A. Philpotts)

Just pipping Newton and Mr Bramley at the post: ‘Galileo Galilei – Thanks
for the loan of the tower. You may straighten it up again now.’ (Adrian
Dobbs)

A nicely nasty one: ‘Sir Cyril Burt – My thanks go to the twins, wherever
they may be.’ (John Feather)

And an acknowledgement of the military-industrial complex: ‘The inventor
of buckminsterfullerene would acknowledge the pivotal role of the Pentagon.’
(Martin Diment)

Several other entries would have won prizes, but would unfortunately
have landed Feedback in the courts for libel. But they were fun to read.