THIS YEAR`S HEADLINES ?

I moan quite a lot about the BBC but it does have some redeeming features, mainly the documentaries it produces on BBC 4 and the Horizon series on BBC 2.

I watched the Horizon Special programme about CERN`s Large Hadron Collider and the search being conducted for the Higgs Boson - the elusive `God Particle,` as the press will have it.   It`s fascinating stuff and there`s no doubt that enormous progress has been made in narrowing down the area where the Higgs might finally been confirmed.  This is an example of how the progress has been hailed in the press:-

"WE MAY HAVE GLIMPSED THE HIGGS BOSON," SAY CERN SCIENTISTS

Physicists have seen strong hints the Higgs boson exists but a firm discovery may not come before the end of 2012......

Now I know I shouldn`t trivialise something as important as the search to confirmthe existence (or not) of something that might be responsible for giving mass to everything in the universe, without which nothing including ourselves would be here today.   But the truth is that any triviality comes not from the scientists at CERN, nor from the subject of their research, but from the way in which these things are reported.


All of which reminds me of headlines I`ve come across in the past, most especially in provincial newspapers.   For example - `PEDESTRIAN ALMOST HIT BY CYCLIST` was a headline in the Isle of Wight County Press (`Black and White and Read all over`.)   And in truth "We may have glimpsed the Higgs Boson" is really about another near miss.


But I`m looking forward to later in the year when CERN might announce whether the Higgs exists or not.   If it is proven to exist then the headlines will no doubt shout "GOD PARTICLE CONFIRMED."   If not, then perhaps "BOFFINS BACK TO SQUARE ONE" might be the headline.   In the meantime, I`m still waiting for the one headline that has so far eluded me - "MARIE CELESTE DOCKS AT LIVERPOOL."