Lunchtime news coverage of the current preparations for the supercollider at CERN were predictably weedy. The BBC's science correspondent (he has a hapless role, methinks) was wearing his hadron-proof hard hat as he toured the site. He admitted that the science was hard to explain - so didn't bother to do so except in a very patronising and superficial manner. Sigh.

We had a wobbly-cam high-speed video of part of the tunnel, some spring-and-ball graphics of subatomic particles in grey, pink and green (mmm, nice), and a pretty picture that looked like maypole ribbons - presumably intended to copy the x-ray traces of particle collisions but in a more inclusive and accessible way. I did Physics A level in the early 70s, and take an amateur interest in science - so I guess I am way over-qualified to watch this drivel. Higgs bosons to the lot of them.

Meanwhile, I am spluttering into my cup of lunchtime soup at the utter futility of it all. I suppose that with Daniel Radcliffe's stage debut being counted as top news (compared, for example, to all the death and destruction in Iraq - so last week), I should hardly be surprised.

You can find out a tiny bit more here, should you wish to strain your grey matter just a little.

A recent post in Life's Lessons' blog [edit: now defunct] brought up a topic I had thought about twice this past week. For some reason, it is often acceptable (in the media and generally) to be a scientific ignoramus, in a way that is not true for other subjects.

As I graduated with a science degree, I naturally find that a bit annoying!

Last week, there was a short article about Linnaean classification (I can't remember where, but probably Radio 4), and the female presenter was stumbling hopelessly over the Latin names of several commonly known species (at least to me having done Biology A level many years ago) - like Homo sapiens and Drosophila melanogaster. She didn't seem in the least embarrassed, as might have been the case if it was some obscure foreign diplomat's name for example.

And today, I listened to the Food Programme also on R4, which is all about rapeseed oil. Sheila Dillon visited Duncan Farrington - a rapeseed farmer, and during their discussion, mentioned that the seedpods were shaped like chillies. Duncan replied that since rape belonged to the same family (Solanaceae) as chillies, this wasn't surprising. Well Duncan, rape is, and always has been AFAIK, in a different family (Brassicaceae). You might think that even if he didn't know, there might be some fact-checker to do a little bit of work behind the scenes? Or not.