The transition to owning an electric car is in its final phase: our electricity supplier is set to install a smart meter in conjunction with a special tariff that will allow us to charge the car cheaply in the dead of night. After that, all I have to do is live long enough to see a return on my considerable investment.
In the meantime – as sometimes happens in the course of my work – I need to interview some eminent scientists. In my experience eminent scientists are easy to reach – they tend to be attached to academic institutions that readily provide their contact details – and surprisingly willing to spend an hour explaining their work to a moron. But there is always a period – the long interval after I’ve emailed four or five, and before any of them have answered – that I begin to suspect a conspiracy of silence. What is it, I think, about my oily emails that they don’t like?
