Week Twenty One: Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin.

Backroom Boys: The Secret Return of the British Boffin by Francis Spufford. Another misleading title, because it's neither secret nor a return.

It's a history. An interesting history that went over some ground I knew and some I did not. There are six 'events' that encapsulate the supposed Boffinesque behaviour of the Brits and each one of them is fascinating in some way or another.

Ultimately though what we end up with is a modern Britain, one that can't compete with Europe and America on an equal footing any longer and so produces a very high quality, but ultimately doomed venture that is usually superseded or left behind as a testament to both the quality and futility of British Engineering.

Whenever you say Boffin or British Engineering, it does conjure up the White Coated, Dan Dare, Top Gear Test Track view of a scientist (minus the appalling racism of course) but that seems to be all it does. This quickly goes from the titular promise of "Secret Return" to the actuality of a "History of high quality losses". This is a massive generalisation of course, but that is the feeling it left me with.

Interesting. Racal invented Vodafone, (did not know that). Elite was developed by 2 British nerds who rewired the BBC Mirco (knew that). Britain had a space race of sorts (knew that) and it's propulsion drive HTP was based on hair bleach (did not know that). The chapter on Concorde was really interesting and inspiring, the one on the Human Genome - dull and a little bit of a waste of everyone's time. And to top it all off, Beagle 2. No one knows where that went (well it went to Mars - but when it got there? Anyone's guess).

I'd neither recommend or not recommend this book. It's a book, read it or don't.

Next week. I may have to finish the proto military essays on what might have been...