The month ahead

Anjana Ahuja on the World Cup, truth and a feast in Cheltenham
May 24, 2010
Star turn: physicist Brian Cox


Steve Haake will be talking a complete load of balls at the Royal Institution in London on 8th June, to coincide with the World Cup kick-off in South Africa a few days later. The professor of sports engineering will reveal how modern developments such as lightweight boots and differently designed balls have changed the beautiful game. www.rigb.org

“Of course England are going to win, darling.” “No, you’re not going bald.” Both fibs, of course. But why do we tell them so frequently? The renowned psychologist and writer Dorothy Rowe will be spilling the truth about untruths at the British Library on 1st June at 7pm. www.bl.uk

Music doesn’t have the monopoly on festivals: shun muddy Glastonbury and head to the Cheltenham Festival of Science instead. Robert Winston, Bill Bryson, musician-turned-physicist Brian Cox and comedian Ben Miller will be taking the genteel spa town by storm from 9th to 13th June. It should be a feast, especially as Heston Blumenthal, king of molecular gastronomy, is a guest director. www.cheltenhamfestivals.com/science

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Pan Macmillan) is an American publishing sensation out here in early June. Author Rebecca Skloot spent ten years researching the life and descendants of Lacks, the poor, cancer-ridden African-American woman who unwittingly gave science the first line of mass-produced “immortal” cells. This dark tale of dodgy ethics and racial politics is not all gloom: her cell line was used to cure polio and is today helping to fight both Aids and cancer.