just wondering

You have to wonder about the UK. What keeps this country going? No matter where you look, left or right, things fall apart faster than you can dive for cover. Take the airports, for example. Heathrow's new terminal 5 has been one long disaster ever since it opened. I don't think any bag has been reunited with its just-arrived owner right away. Carrier belts keep breaking down (assuming they were installed in the first place, of which I'm still not sure) and software that scans tags and matches bags with passengers quickly follows.

Yesterday, two inches of snow managed to create a chaos of epic proportions, worthy of a blizzard dropping two feet. More than a hundred flights were canceled at Heathrow, close to 100 at City, and a good dozen at Gatwick. The snow was long melted when the majority of these cancelations took effect.

The tube is its own paradox. It appears to be working just barely on good days, with escalators moaning under the weight of thousands, trains creaking in their tracks, and signal failures just failing to bring everything to a standstill. Surprisingly many days are good days, and the system as a whole works much better than you'd fear - or expect for its daring bricolage of cables and ancient maze of tunnels. The age of the system shows everywhere you look, and yet it rises to the challenge rather admirably. Unlike Old Faithful, this will not go on forever.

Another item from the shake-your-heads-in-disbelieve department are residential buildings. Century-old structures have risen in value without any value being added to them. Windy windows, as old as the building, let heat escape unhindered. Walls have never seen the slightest insulation, and paint only sporadically. Rickety doors open onto dilapidated balconies. Some buildings seem to be held standing only by the hope of their inhabitants. With the arrogance of a German, I sometimes wonder how highly developed this country really is that I ended up in.

With Imperial College I don't wonder where I am. This university tries hard and successfully to be top notch and has build an enviable reputation over the decades. Word has got out. People hear and come. Today I had lunch with Hartmut Michel who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1988 and is now a visiting professor in our department. Later in the afternoon, he delivered a talk and a podium conversation with Stanlay Prusiner who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is here on a half-year sabbatical. Two weeks from now, Craig Mello, the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner, will give a talk at Imperial. It's enough to get me all giddy about science.