Status-Q

Do you wish to mark your place in the history books as one of the great scientists of all time? I’ve been thinking that it would be a good thing to do, but haven’t got around to it this weekend, because I realised I had a fundamental problem to overcome. Yes, you guessed it…

I don’t look interesting enough.

Would Albert Einstein have been imprinted so firmly in the public consciousness if it weren’t for his moustache and hair? Or Charles Darwin if not for his beard? Or Stephen Hawking, poor chap, without his wheelchair?

I suspect that, while they might have transformed their disciplines in just the same way, they wouldn’t have got the same column inches in the papers.

So I recommend that, before announcing your great discovery, you adopt something that will make press photographers flock to you. Facial hair may be overdone now, so I’d go for a dramatic bow-tie or an eccentric hat. Silly glasses, perhaps.

For women, of course, the best thing is to transform yourself into a total knockout babe… but we men have to come up with gimmicks to be taken seriously.