However, if Greek scientists are awarded grants and if the people who hold the pursestrings for such spending are at a loss for ideas on subjects worth investigating, I have before me a list of research grants recently awarded in the United Kingdom guaranteed to inspire and quicken the pulse of even the most jaded scientists in our midst.
The list is contained in a report which was published in the August 21 issue of the Daily Telegraph, It starts off with a £37,000 research grant awarded by the Social Science Research Council and the Sports Council to find out ‘how much time the average man spends watching television and on visits to public houses.’ One of the two sociologists who will be carrying out this two-year program remarked: “The sponsors want us to make a report on the changing needs for leisure activities. But I expect our detailed study will reinforce earlier findings by other people that we spend most of our leisure time watching television, going to the pub and going to bed.”
Wouldn’t it be a splendid idea if, when the final report comes out in Britain in 1982, we could produce a similar report on how much time the average Greek spends in a kafeneion or stuffing his face in a taverna and watching television before going to bed? We could also liven up the report a little by throwing in a few extra thousands of drachmas to find out what he does in bed, too, after the national anthem has closed down the TV station.
The Daily Telegraph report goes on to say that Liverpool University will spend £6,000 on an in-depth study of rabbits’ knees. The orthopedic surgeon in charge of this project said: “We are looking at ways of effectively transplanting animal parts to give us experience so that we might be able to adapt similar techniques with humans suffering with arthritic joints.”
Well, if in some years to come we are going to see arthritic Britons hopping around with rabbits’ knees I see no reason why we should not be embarking on a similar program in this country. As a matter of fact, goats’ knees would be far more appropriate in our case, both in view of the mountainous terrain and the mythological precedent of Pan and the satyrs, even though the aesthetic result may leave something to be desired.
The next item in the Daily Telegraph story is a £10,000 grant from the University of Glasgow to find out how two species of burrowing crabs are able to breathe, deep inside their sandy burrows. In our case, of course, a more suitable subject for study would be the ants which infest the electrical wiring system of suburban villas in Psychiko and Kifissia. How do they manage to live and multiply with the constant threat of instant electrocution hanging over their heads and how does one get rid of them without tearing one’s walls apart? I am sure that many desperate suburban householders would be more than willing to contribute to the financing of such a study.
The next grant mentioned by the Daily Telegraph is to the tune of £52,000 for a study of turbulence on the bottom of the Irish Sea – the turbulence in Northern Ireland apparently presenting no serious problems.
I cannot think of any place in Greek waters that is plagued with any turbulence worthy of study. On the other hand, having observed a great deal of the sea bottom around the beaches and rocky coasts of Attica I would think it is high time a serious study and inventory were made of the various interesting items to be seen on it. These include a large selection of broken toilet seats in many different colors; empty beer cans and bottles in all shapes and sizes; plastic beach sandals; odd flippers; bikini tops and, occasionally, bottoms; tangled fishing lines; bits of old nets; plastic suntan lotion containers; waterlogged watermelon rinds; old newspapers; plastic ice cream and yogurt cups; 78 rpm gramophone records; empty sardine tins, Coke bottles and several other items that one does not mention in polite society. Once, off the coast of Ramnous, I even saw an old ski boot. Thousands of years hence, all these objects, with the possible exception of the watermelon rinds and the old newspapers which have a limited submarine lifespan, will be of considerable value to archaeologists and may even end up on display in 25th century museums. So why waste time and not record or preserve them for posterity as from now?
Finally, the Daily Telegraph reports a grant of £56,000 from the Medical Research Council to a pharmacologist to study the bovine retractor penis muscle.
A similar study in Greece would be of little interest to Greek science since bulls do not make up a significant proportion of the country’s fauna. But I am certain that the majority of the Greek male population (and possibly the female population as well) would be interested in an in-depth study of the antithetical muscle in the human anatomy and how it can be kept in working condition well beyond a certain age limit.
