Brexitium and the new science guidelines

With tongue rammed firmly in cheek Russ Swan casts the wryest of eyes over the omni-shambles of Brexit and what it means for UK science…

This is big. Having been granted exclusive access to workings of HM government's Select and Rectification Committee on Science and Mathematics, SARCASM, we can today reveal the highly-advanced state of preparedness of the science industry for the imminent changes to our national life.

The committee wishes to remind the world how great Britain really is and how our scientists and engineers basically discovered and invented everything. New guidelines reinforce this new truth and take the opportunity to correct a number of historical and geographical anomalies.

One of the least abundant elements in the universe, Europium, is still too abundant for the new paradigm and will be honoured with the name Brexitium

Calculus was developed by Isaac Newton, a proud Englishman, yet for centuries the system of notation used is that of a German, Gottfried Leibniz. The committee has determined that Newton's is the one true calculus and that his notation must be used. This will stimulate a small economic miracle as textbooks are replaced so that the unwelcome foreign ? is replaced with correct British x-. Furthermore, Leibniz biscuits are to become Issacs (Newtons already being used for a less delicious snack).

There will be some redesignations of laboratory equipment and procedures, for example the Petri dish will be simply a culture plate. Regarding the pipette, the committee feels this disturbingly Francophone name is symptomatic of the insidious creeping nature of Europisation that has held this country back for so long, and it will henceforth be Anglicised and improved to 'littlepipe'. The micropipette naturally becomes the verylittlepipe, or weelittlepipe in Scotland where it is not to be confused with the littleweepipe or urinary catheter. Meanwhile the macropipette becomes the biglittlepipe, or simply pipe.

Among other improvements (the official term), the process of Pasteurisation will now be called Jennerisation to reflect the more important work of the Englishman Edward Jenner over the Frenchman Louis Pasteur.

Many corrections will be made to create a new periodic table. Element 21, Scandium, is to be renamed Britannium, Darmstadtium becomes Cambridgium. One of the least abundant elements in the universe, Europium, is still too abundant for the new paradigm and will be honoured with the name Brexitium. This notoriously hard-to-isolate material will in future find itself utterly and completely isolated, which everybody agrees must be a good thing.

Marie Curie, after whom Curium was named, has been found to fall under the recent Home Office designation of 'double foreigner' on account of her Polish birth and French citizenship. She is removed from the new periodic table and element 96 rededicated to celebrate the national dish of the United Kingdom. Henceforth Curium will be known as Currium.

The committee has described as 'pathetic and childish' a countermove by the EU to rename Rutherfordium. Said one prominent member "this merely reinforces our determination, and anyway Ernest Rutherford wasn't even British but from New Zealand. They couldn’t even find a proper Briton to demote, because there aren’t any in the periodic table. So there."

The new Euro-sponsored name for the element celebrates the contribution of one of the continent's smallest nations, which hosts most of its bureaucracy. It will be known as Belgiumium.

These changes may necessitate that the UK also withdraws from IUPAC, but this is considered an easy task with all of our recently-acquired withdrawal expertise. The union is notorious for being stuffed with experts, said one committee member, and we don’t want anything to do with that.

Finally, in a gesture towards the bright future of the UK as a subsidiary of the USA, element 13 is to be officially renamed aloominum. The committee is confident that all will agree this is a small price to pay for the opportunity to eat chlorine-washed chicken and hand over our NHS to the forward-looking, thoughtful, and altruistic private sector healthcare providers of America.

Russ Swan