There was Nel, Nel . . .

Warm congratulations to the publishers of The Science Reporter, august organ of the Association of British Science Writers, for a classic display of the havoc that can be wrought by omitting a single word from a sentence. A jokey paragraph in the latest issue notes the condom-issuing activities of "The appropriately named Nel van Dijk, the European Parliament's leading campaigner for sex". The missing word is, one suspects, exactly what the editors will not be should Ms van Dijk ever get them in her sights.