Cyprus’s Financial Mirror, a weekly newspaper, is printed on sleazy looking pink paper like the Financial Times, but after that the comparison, unlike the colour of the paper, fades. And, incidentally, should you think, reasonably, that the colour is rather high tack - better suited to page 3 girl publications - you should know that it costs more to print on pink. Probably pollutes more as well.
Anyway, tomorrow’s edition features an appalling article entitled “Nuclear Explosion - Where to Hide”. Antennae already twitching. Hide? Any memories of Hiroshima? It gets worse. University of Nicosia scientists have simulated what would happen if a nuclear bomb were dropped on a major city. By which one supposes they do not mean Nicosia, but who knows?
The “advanced computer modelling” does lead to some specific bits of advice. The supposition is that you are inside a concrete building - being outside would be more hazardous - in which case you should avoid standing next to doors and windows, although there could still be severe injuries and even fatalities. The study has been peer reviewed and published in Physics of Fluids, put out by the American Institute of Physics. A publication about which I know nothing, but which sounds respectable enough.
Although this does lead to some speculation on the funding. Increasingly - in fact in the sciences and technology one might say overwhelmingly - university funding now comes from private industry or, even worse, sources like the American military. Who actually wants to know what happens to people inside a concrete-reinforced building during a nuclear explosion? And, while it would clearly be the responsibility of someone other than the physicists, mightn’t searching for diplomatic solutions to what might become nuclear problems be more use?
Time to reshow “When the Wind Blows”?